


El-Ahrairah

by Katzedecimal



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12320733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: A face from the past, a singer from a smoky room, a web of secrets.





	1. Ahead by a Century

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FroggyBangBang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroggyBangBang/gifts).



> Blame FroggyBangBang. I never intend to write these silly ideas but then she (and to be honest, a bunch of other people) always wants to see how they play out, sooooo here it is.

_They sat together on the thick tree branch, hand in hand. Together they watched a pair of robins take the sky, turning their heads in unison._

_She turned her dazzling smile to him and sang, "Fly, robin, fly."_

_"Fly, robin, fly," he answered._

_She nodded, "Fly, robin, fly."_

_And together they chorused, "Up, up to the sky!" And they laughed and threw their arms around each other and hugged a long embrace unti the grown-ups, forever frightened, found them and made them come down._

_The station wagon was waiting to take him home and he didn't want to leave. He turned back to where they were escorting her away and her long hair swayed as she looked back at him, the tears running down both their faces._

_"no."_

_The car roaring, screaming out of the night_

_"No!!"_

_She opened her hand and the moon fell out_

_"NO!!!"_

He gasped awake. He swallowed a few times, struggling to breathe. His face was wet with tears. He reached over to slap the clock radio off and sat up, then he went to the bathroom to throw up. 

He rinsed his mouth out then leaned over the sink, his breathing still rough. Finally he lifted his head to regard his face in the mirror, taking in all the little wrinkles that were appearing, how his auburn hair had receded from his wide forehead, how his cheeks were starting to sink. Many people said he looked young for his age, given the stresses he was under, by right now, Mycroft just felt _old._

He brushed his teeth then went back to his bedroom to dress. His phone was blinking and he picked it up. There was a single text from an unknown number, bearing a single word: El-Ahrairah. 

_Oh,_ Mycroft thought, feeling himself go pale, _Shit._


	2. Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Way down the street, there's a light in his place._   
>  _He opens the door, he's got that look on his face_   
>  _And he asks you where you've been_   
>  _You tell him who you've seen_   
>  _And you talk about everything._

Three knocks = Client with a case. 

Three rapid knocks = Client with an urgent case. 

Three hesitant knocks, after dithering for some time on the pavement = Client with an affair or some other case motivated by love. Boring.

Three solid, deliberate knocks = ..... Different.

John got up to open the door, admitting a woman who appeared to be around his age, possibly a little older, with a few silver strands in her dark auburn hair. Her eyes above her sharp cheekbones were circled but bright. On the couch, Sherlock slit his eyes open and glanced at the woman in the doorway, then his eyes opened wide and he sat up, "You?!"

The woman's face split into a wide smile and she rushed across the floor to embrace him. 

"You two know each other, then?" John asked. 

"Erm, sort of," Sherlock said, releasing the woman and taking her coat, "I've met her on and off for years but I don't know her name. She's just..." he thought for a moment then shrugged, "She's the singer in a smoky room."

"'The smell of wine and cheap perfume,'" John finished. He thought about it then fixed Sherlock with a hard stare, "So she's a junky."

Sherlock grinned but didn't comment. "At the moment, I believe she's a client," he said instead, bringing out the clients' chair for her. John nodded and went to make tea. 

Sherlock waited until John had returned with the tea tray and taken his usual chair, before he began, "Very well, what brings you to us?" 

She tipped her head towards Sherlock and sang, "'I always feel like somebody's watching me.'"

John shot a quizzical glance at Sherlock, who shrugged. "She's the singer," he explained unhelpfully. 

"Can you tell us more?" John asked. 

"'Out on the road today, I saw a dead-head sticker on a Cadillac. A little voice inside my head said Don't look back, you can never look back.'"

Sherlock sat back and rested his steepled fingers against his chin. "You believe you're being followed?" She nodded. "You'd like me to confirm this? Find out who is following you?"

She nodded and sang, "'The thing I love the most is trying to kill me.'"

John glanced at the ceiling, "You're kidding."

"John..." Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes. 

The woman lifted her hands and signed, 'He's tried to kill me before.'

"I see," Sherlock said thoughtfully. He ignored the Look John was giving him and pulled out his phone. After sending off a text, he put the phone away and said, "Very well, I'll take the case. I do owe you some favours." The woman sat back with a relieved sigh. 

"You do?" John said. 

Sherlock ignored him but got up to answer the door. "Ah, Mrs. Hudson, thank you." He turned back to the woman, "It's been a while since you've eaten, hasn't it? I've asked Mrs. Hudson to take you down to Speedy's, you can get something there and bring it back here."

'Thank you,' the woman signed, looking very relieved, and got up to get her coat. 

"Thank you for doing this, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock said softly. 

Mrs. Hudson smiled warmly. "I don't mind at all, dear, but I must say," she glanced quickly into the flat, "You've had some strange visitors but something's really off about this one."

Sherlock frowned, "She just uses sign language, that's all."

Mrs. Hudson shook her head then pasted her sunny smile into place as the woman approached, "Come along with me, dear. They've got a special on hot roast beef sandwiches tonight, with Yorkshire puddings! You'll love the gravy, everyone does."

"Mrs. Hudson will look after you," Sherlock said, "She knows what to look for. I'll fill John in."

John waited for the door to click shut behind her then looked at Sherlock, "We're taking the case? It sounds like classic paranoia."

"I know it does but I don't think it is. Look at the way she was moving. There is bruising across her chest and on her forearms, her wrists and knuckles were swollen; she'd been grabbed and fought free. She's showing signs of delayed onset muscle soreness, most likely from running but possibly also from using her legs to fight. DOMS takes twenty four hours to manifest and the swelling on her knuckles has reduced but isn't gone, she's showing signs of exhaustion, so she was attacked between one and three days ago and has been running ever since."

"You said you knew her? You owe her favours?"

"She was... present, at certain times. She provided me much-needed motivation," Sherlock sighed and didn't meet John's eyes.

"You said she was a junky."

"I never said that," Sherlock replied, "I've never seen her use. But the times I've met her have been in dens, yes. This is the first time I've seen her outside of one."

"But she gives you motivation, you said. What kind of motivation?"

Sherlock sighed heavily, not looking at John. "I've met her many times over the years, but several times in the two years I was gone." John narrowed his eyes. "I don't know how she found me. Once was in Canada, another time was in Croatia, yet another in Bad Fuessing of all places. I was close to giving up. I don't know how she finds me, but every time, she reminded me of why I was doing it at all." He lifted his head and looked into John's eyes, "Who I was doing it for. I don't think I would have made it back without the support of several people; she was one of them."

* * * *

"Ah! - Mycroft. I was just about to call you."

"Lady Smallwood," Mycroft said urbanely, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We have reason to believe that Project Eleven has activated again."

Mycroft felt a stab in the pit of his stomach and flexed an eyebrow to cover it. "Project Eleven was retired. I made sure of that."

"And did your usual excellent job," Lady Smallwood nodded, "Unfortunately, Project Eleven has a history of being exceptionally resistant to retirement. Even with your usual thoroughness, we must consider the possibility."

Mycroft examined the tip of his umbrella, "What evidence leads you to believe that it's Project Eleven?"

Lady Smallwood's hands drifted over her computer keyboard and called up a number of images and documents. "These photographs."

Mycroft studied them. "A twin, perhaps?"

"Don't be silly, Mycroft, it's never twins."

"Indeed. However, doppelganger look-alikes, who share strikingly similar features despite being unrelated, happen with surprising regularity."

"I had considered the possibility," Lady Smallwood nodded, "But then there are these documents."

Mycroft looked them over then shook his head, "Project Eleven was terminated, Lady Smallwood. Nevertheless, I shall take this under consideration. Will that be all?"

"Yes. Thank you."

Mycroft turned and walked sedately through the ornate doors and did not stop until he was back in his office. He summoned his car then put on his coat and let himself be delivered to the Diogenes Club. Once there, he went into the Strangers' Room and took out his phone.

It rang twice then picked up. "Brother dear! What a lovely surprise."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. Unfortunately, Sherlock had mastered dripping sarcasm at a rather early age. "I need you to take a case for me. I need you to locate this woman." He uploaded an image into the phone.

Sherlock stared at it. "And what does the British government want with her?"

"She's dead," Mycroft said, "Or she's supposed to be. I have reason to believe she isn't. I need you to find her before the British government does."

Sherlock frowned, "So the British government wants her dead but **you** want her alive. Why? Who is she?"

"Only the most dangerous woman in the world," Mycroft said, "And in the most danger." He cut the call.

Sherlock stared at his phone as John came up beside him. "What was that all about?"

"Mm. My brother wants me to find a missing person."

"Oh? Any leads, then?"

"Mm," Sherlock said and turned the phone to show John the picture, "She's downstairs at Speedy's."


	3. I Will Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why does Mycroft wear that ring?" John whispered, "You've never said."
> 
> " **He's** never said," Sherlock agreed, "I've always assumed it was to deflect interest."
> 
> "Because they sound **exactly** like a married couple and I should know!"
> 
> "You think _Mycroft_ has a secret _wife_?"

"I told you, I have a client!" Sherlock hissed.

"And I told you, this is more important!" Mycroft hissed back.

"Fine," Sherlock said, "Then be quick about it. You said she's the most dangerous woman in the world, why?"

Mycroft sat in the client's chair, looking most disgruntled about it. "She is... extremely creative. She is an inventor, of sorts. She makes things and certain people want them."

"Sorry, what?" John said, "I'm sorry, I don't quite follow... She... makes things? What?"

"Weapons," Sherlock translated then flexed a surprised eyebrow as Mycroft shook his head.

"Toys," he corrected, "Or at least, that's how she thinks of them. The problem is that she is a bit... different, in her perception of the world. She sees herself as a super-hero, of sorts. She consumes popular media - movies, telly, comic books - and she gets ideas from them and she brings those ideas to life." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small object. "This is what got her killed the last time." He unfolded it and shook it out.

John sucked in his breath, "Jesus christ."

Sherlock reached out to touch the material. "I see."

"Harry Potter's cloak," John breathed, and she nodded. "She... invented an invisibility cloak?"

"Obviously," Sherlock murmured thoughtfully, "And you called it a toy."

"Lots of people won't see that as a toy," John said, understanding.

"Quite so," Mycroft said, "But she will not sell nor commit herself to any player, so she had been caught in an endless game of 'If I can't have it, no one can.' Fortunately or unfortunately, she is extremely clever. She has survived several assassination attempts and has been living under assumed identities."

"But you have a personal connection to her."

Mycroft nodded, "My codename for her is El-Ahrairah."

John frowned, "Isn't that the name of the rabbit prince in _Watership Down?_ "

" _All the world will be your enemy, Prince With A Thousand Enemies,_ " Sherlock recited, " _And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, Digger, Listener, Runner, Prince with the Swift Warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people will never be destroyed._ " Mycroft nodded. "But **you** want her alive; why? Who **is** she?" 

"The British government has become aware that she's escaped death again. Find her and protect her."

"Why? What's your stake in this?" John broke off at the sound of footsteps in the stairwell and shot Sherlock an anxious look.

"You'll be wanting tea, of course," Sherlock said brightly, "It's in the kitchen, why don't you help yourself?"

"Why, what are you on about now?" The door opened and Mycroft went pale, then red. 

The woman stared at him in shock, then rage. "'I just walk in and find you here with that sad look upon your face!'" She glanced at Sherlock, "'You should have changed the stupid lock, you should have made him leave his key, if I'd've known for just one second he'd be back to bother me!'"

"Nice to see you, too," Mycroft said sarcastically.

"'Go on now, go! Walk out the door! Just turn around now, 'cause you're not welcome anymore!'"

"I don't think she likes you, Mycroft," John sniggered.

"'Down I go, a heart's been shot, you already left the scene. Tell me why I had to die, did my dreams play tricks on me?'"

Mycroft drew himself up and stared down at her, singing, "'You called me strong, you called me weak but still your secrets I will keep. You took for granted all the times I never let you down.'"

John and Sherlock looked at each other. This only inflamed the woman even more. "'I entered nothing and nothing entered me, 'til you came with the key. And you did your best but as I live and breathe, you have killed me, you have killed me. Yes, I walk around somehow but you have killed me.'"

"'You stumbled in and bumped your head, if not for me then you'd be dead, I picked you up and put you back on solid ground!'"

The woman looked incendiary. She looked like she was about to punch Mycroft's lights out. Then Sherlock burst into laughter and everyone stopped to stare at him. "Yeah, um, he... he did that to me, too," Sherlock chuckled, "Watched me get tortured, then tried to take the credit when I extricated myself."

The woman stared at him incredulously then at Mycroft. 'You are a terrible person!' she signed. 

'That is a completely different matter!' Mycroft signed back, touching off another round of squabbling. 

John edged away and gently drew Sherlock into the kitchen with him. "Why does Mycroft wear that ring?" he whispered, "You've never said."

" **He's** never said," Sherlock agreed, "I've always assumed it was to deflect interest."

"Because they sound **exactly** like a married couple and I should know!"

"You think _Mycroft_ has a secret _wife_?"

"It fits, doesn't it? Estranged male partner stalking the female partner. Most of the murders we see are of intimate partners. Mycroft has extraordinary resources, men in black and access to the CCTV system, so suddenly her paranoia isn't paranoia at all. He works for the government - if she's inventing things like that invisibility cloak and refusing to contract? Mycroft has **never** taken no for an answer, not even from you!"

He expected Sherlock to scoff at him again but he didn't. Instead, his brows drew together and he brought his tented fingertips to his lips as he thought. 

"'..Damn your love, damn your lies! I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain!'"

"'You're cold and you're tired, You're hurt and you're sad. For all that you've given, For all that you've had, It's not what you think it is.'"

"This is the weirdest argument I've ever heard," John commented. 

"You're only hearing half of it. They're also signing."

"'I kept on thinking 'bout you, sister goldenhair surprise, and I just can't live without you, can't you see it in my eyes?'"

"I've never heard Mycroft sing before," Sherlock murmured. 

"She refuses him, he tries to kill her, which she's understandably upset about, he's trying to woo her back. It's a classic intimate partner cycle, albeit an extreme one."

Sherlock nodded, "The only surprise is that it's Mycroft."

They went back out to the living room and settled back into their chairs. "So," John said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, "Is this Mrs. Holmes, then?"

They both gaped at him, then stared at each other. Then the woman burst into hysterical laughter. Mycroft stared at Sherlock but Sherlock looked just as sceptical as John. "I always forget how we must appear to other people," Mycroft sighed and passed a hand over his hair, "You have correctly deduced the level of intimacy but mistaken the nature of our relationship." He sat down on the couch and drew the woman to sit beside him.

John took his own chair and tented his own fingers, "So not a wife or a girlfriend." He looked from one to the other then at Sherlock and back again. "She's a relative."

Mycroft looked at the woman, "Yes, she is."

The woman smiled and shrugged. "'I'm a Holmes. I know it and I'm fine. He's One and more were on the way. I'm Two, Doctor, Three's down the line. We'll hear from Four again another day.'"

John stared, then turned to look across at Sherlock. Sherlock's expression hadn't shifted at all but grew steadily darker. Mycroft drew a deep breath, visibly nerving himself. "John, Sherlock... This is my fraternal twin sister, Minerva."


	4. The Highwayman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The night was bitterly cold and raining, but Mycroft's hands were not as cold as the pit in his stomach. He stripped the last wire and twisted it. They were watching. Despite what he liked to believe, there were members among them who weren't **that** stupid; they'd know if he didn't do this properly._
> 
> _And if he did it properly, she would die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for child abuse as therapy

_"Okay, Mikey, let's do this! ... good. Now let's do this... Good. Now this... good. Now touch your head. Good. Touch your head. Touch your head, Mikey. Touch your head, Mikey. Touch your head."_

_"Minnie, touch your head. Touch your head, Minnie. Touch your head. Minnie, that's not earning your token. Touch your head, Minnie. Touch your head. Good."_

_"Time to play the word game, now. Mikey, what's this? Look at the picture. Mikey, Minnie, pay attention. Look at the picture. Minnie, pay attention. What is this? Mikey? It's an apple. Say 'apple.' Aaah-pull. Mikey, pay attention. Mikey? Aaah-pull. Minnie, say it with me, aaah-pull. Minnie, pay attention. Minnie, look at me. Look at me, Minnie, look at me. Minnie! LOOK at me! OW! - Mikey, STOP! You're earning an abversive, young man! Mikey, stop! Mikey! Mycroft!"_

"'Mikey and Minnie'? Really?"

Mycroft blinked, surfacing from the memory to see John staring at him with one sceptical eyebrow raised. Sherlock's eyes were closed in sympathetic mock pain. Minerva hadn't surfaced yet.

"Our parents were rather young and naive back then," Mycroft said lightly, "I'm sure they thought it was cute."

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked across at John. The memory of _'Mycroft is the name you gave me, if you could possibly struggle all the way to the end,'_ hung invisibly between them and they both burst into giggles. 

"'Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, dormez-vous, dormez-vous...'" Minerva's voice was distant. Mycroft looked at her sadly and covered her hand with his own. 

"The therapists taught us nursery songs in an attempt to teach us speech. We could sing along with songs on the radio, they said it was a form of echolalia. That became our primary method of communication with each other."

"'My life is a stereo, kinda cheaply made though,'" Minerva sang softly.

Mycroft smiled at her indulgently. "It's the lyric that matters, not the song. I was around four and a half, nearly five years old, when I began to speak. Minerva never did."

"So they taught her sign language?" John asked.

Mycroft shook his head. "We discovered British Sign Language through the old programme _Vision On,_ but our teachers believed that since Minerva was incapable of verbal language, she would be incapable of manual language as well. I begged for lessons and taught her what I learned, in secret."

Sherlock's eyes slit open again. "No photographs, no mention of her at all, no mention of you having a twin. I can't have suppressed **those** memories as well."

"You didn't," Mycroft agreed, "That was done for my benefit. It was believed that it would ease the pain of separation if she wasn't acknowledged." _"It's time to say goodbye, Mikey. Wave bye-bye, Mikey. Wave bye-bye to Minnie." "No! No! Minnie doesn't want to!" "Wave bye-bye, Mikey. It's time to go." "No I can't go, Minnie's crying! She doesn't want me to!" "Mikey! It's time to go! Mikey!"_ He drew a deep breath, to see Sherlock staring at him. "I think you only met her perhaps two or three times, and you were never told who she was. You don't remember her because she was placed in an institution when she was very young." _"Mikey, what are you doing with your suitcase? Are you running away?" "I'm going to live with Minnie. Minnie doesn't like it there."_

"Why?"

"Uncle Rudy determined that she would remain in an incapable state and made a recommendation, and the other doctors agreed. And as I said, Mummy and Daddy were naive."

Sherlock and John exchanged a quick Look. "I'm starting to see what influenced your choices regarding Eurus," Sherlock murmured, "You said she's dead? Or supposed to be?"

_"If you fall into this notch, you should be able to control it enough. You need to bite this when it hits you. I was able to come up with this, Patricia Sedgewick."_

_She nodded, crying and terrified but determined. She took the capsule and the wallet and flung her arms around him. He clutched her close, his insides twisting thickly. Then she turned away and trudged into the fog and he turned away and climbed down into the ravine._

_Waiting an agonising eternity, finally seeing the headlights approach, the squeal of the tyres, the thump and the dark shape that stumbled and fell over the edge of the ravine and tumbled down. Feeling sick with the need to rush to her aid, forcing himself to wait until the dark figures shone their flashlights onto the unmoving shape below, at the bottom of a ravine too steep to descend safely unless one knew its secrets. Finally the fog closed in and the dark men went on their way._

_Creeping forward through the undergrowth, finding her by feel. Unmoving. She had struck several rocks and was bleeding from lacerations from the bush that had broken her fall. But she was breathing and her heart still beat. Possibly a broken rib, surely many bruises. He gathered her up and carried her out to his moped, then sped away to safety._

_She came back with a jolt. He had found shelter where he could treat her injuries as best he could. "It's just me," he whispered, "You're hurt and you might have a broken rib. I've done my best to tape it. Do you think you can walk?" He helped her up and she took a few wobbly steps. Her ankle was bruised, possibly sprained, but she could walk on it._

_"'Last train to London,'" he sang softly as they approached the train station, "'Just heading out.'"_

_She nodded and dismounted the moped. "'Don't you forget about me. Don't don't don't don't, don't you forget about me.'"_

_He shook his head and hugged her tightly, "'Minnie, Minnie don't you lose my number, 'cause you're not anywhere that I can find you.'"_

_"'Two hearts born to run, who'll be the lonely one? Wonder who's crying now?'"_

_"'Whatever road you choose, I'm right behind you, win or lose.'"_

_"'I would rather hurt myself than to ever make you cry, there's nothing left to try. Though it's going to hurt us both, there's no other way than to say goodbye.'"_

_The strands of her hair slipped through his fingers as she turned away. She limped towards the ticket queue and was gone._

"Why?"

Mycroft blinked. He touched his face, annoyed to find it wet with the tears he couldn't shed at the time. Sherlock was watching him, and he realized that it was he who had spoken. "Why did she have to die?"

"Minerva's toys began attracting attention when she was quite young. We realized that a number of 'near misses' were not accidents. A party unknown was trying to eliminate her. They became more brazen; threats were made against our family. So," Mycroft sighed heavily, "In order to protect everyone, we faked her death."

Sherlock looked over at Minerva, "How old were you?"

"'I went forth with an age old desire to please, on the edge of seventeen.'"

"Seventeen," Sherlock glanced at Mycroft, "So you had begun your Master's degree in Homeland Security."

"Quite so," Mycroft agreed. 

"Why?" John interjected, "I mean, what the hell did she create that could draw that kind of attention?"

"She'd developed an alloy that was entirely bullet-proof," Mycroft said with the ghost of a smile, "Bullets just bounced right off, without a scratch."

"Bullet-proof armour?"

"Hardly," Mycroft smirked, "She wanted to make Wonder Woman's bracelets." Beside him, Minerva grinned. "I only hope she doesn't see the new movie, there's no telling what ideas she might... oh." He saw her expression and sighed, briefly covering his face, "She's seen the new movie, there's no telling what ideas she's gotten from it."

John snickered then sobered again, "So she's been 'dead' since she was seventeen?"

"Minerva Holmes has, yes. However, under other identities, she's escaped or survived many assassination attempts since."

"Including yours," Sherlock said softly.

Mycroft heaved another sigh and passed his hands over his hair, then nodded. "I'd been asked to arrange termination a couple of times. I assigned the tasks to people I knew would be clumsy enough to tip her off or enable to her to escape. But the last time, I was asked to do it personally. It was believed **I** would not fail."

_The night was bitterly cold and raining, but his hands were not as cold as the pit in his stomach. He stripped the last wire and twisted it. They were watching. Despite what he liked to believe, there were members among them who weren't **that** stupid; they'd know if he didn't do this properly._

_And if he did it properly, she would die._

_**Murderer! Your own twin sister!** _

_How to leave some tiny clue, something that could tip her off but not those who watched?_

_**Your own twin sister!** _

_It was done. The tiny prick in the petrol line, the spark, the fireball..._

"Mycroft?"

Mycroft shook himself, horrified to realize tears were dripping off his chin.

"How long ago was this?" John asked.

"Almost nine years ago," Sherlock answered, watching Mycroft. Mycroft had such iron control over his face but when he was remembering, when his attention turned inward, that control slipped and all of his suppressed reactions were there to see and read. Sherlock was watching him carefully but more importantly, so was Minerva. 

"I thought I'd succeeded," Mycroft whispered.

"'But I am still around,'" Minerva sang, "'I'll always be around, and around, and around, and around, and around.'" She sighed heavily, looking resigned. "'Though I know all about those men, still I don't remember, 'cause it was us, Mycroft, way before them, and we're still together.'"

"'And I meant every word I said, when I said that I love you I meant that I'll love you forever.'" Mycroft clutched her close, trying to stop the tears that were having none of it. Sherlock got up to make another pot of tea. 

John followed him into the kitchen. "How'd you know it was nine years ago?" he whispered. 

"Because that was the second time that Mycroft went off the rails. You think he's controlling now, he was much worse then, tried to keep me on a leash so short, it choked. Now I see why - he was holding onto what he had left. His eating disorder was back, too, he gained nearly a stone in less than a fortnight."

John nodded, "Yes, it is explaining a lot. What about this Uncle Rudy then? That name's come up before."

"Yes, and in similar circumstances. Uncle Rudy died when Mycroft was in his twenties. Cardiac arrest, or so I'm told."

"You have doubts?"

"After tonight, I do." Sherlock picked up the tea tray and carried it back out to the living room, where Mycroft was gazing out of the window.

"'Nobody on the road, nobody on the street.'"

Minerva glanced at him, "'I feel it in the air, it's somewhere out of reach.'"

Mycroft shook his head, "'Empty lake, empty beach, the sun goes down alone.'"

"'They're driving by your house, they don't know you're not home.'"

"She thinks she's being followed," Sherlock said, setting the tea tray back down.

Mycroft turned away from the window. "She is almost certainly not wrong," he said, "The British government is certainly aware that she is alive and active again. Whoever her current pursuers are, our people will soon be joining them. Minerva, what have you built _now?_ "

She bit her lip, for a moment looking like a guilty child. Then she drew a small cylinder out of her pocket and touched a switch. A beam of light arced out, extending about a metre. The air around it sizzled. 

John stared. "Is that...?"

She nodded, looking about for something expendable and finding a metal waste basket. She looked up inquiringly and Sherlock nodded. Then she swung the cylinder. 

_**"Shit,"**_ John breathed. Sherlock just stared. "It's a lightsabre. It's an _actual_ fucking lightsabre." She grinned and nodded, then turned it off. 

Mycroft took his hands from his face. "Min- **NER** -VA! One of these days, your luck is going to run out! Until I got your text last night, I thought it had!" Minerva's face froze and her expression shifted into a clear 'What text?' Mycroft tipped his head, "You sent me a text from an unknown number. It was our code word, 'El-Ahrairah.'" He unlocked his phone to show her. She shook her head slowly.

"Who else knows your code word?" John asked.

Mycroft shook his head, "No one."


	5. Phasers On Stun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's the scariest woman I've ever met, and I've met your sister!"

'Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. She took a midnight train going anywhere. Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took a midnight train going anywhere.'

_He was dead. He was dead and this journey wouldn't end in a vibrant chase and back home for toast and tea by the fire with the person who mattered most. He was dead and he had nothing, just a name stolen from a boy who'd died as a toddler. He was dead and though his injuries had healed, there were wounds that just wouldn't stop hurting._

_But a man on the corner knew where to find medicine that could dull the pain for a little while. He stepped off the train platform into the station and found the locker he'd been assigned. He shouldered the satchel inside and went out to get directions to the place where he could find what he needed to drown out the pain of his heart and rev up the sharpness of his brain._

_He settled on one of the mats to prepare his dose. Mixed his solution, checked his syringe. He was tying the tournequet when he became aware of one of the women sitting against the wall, singing._

_"'Reach out, hold out, nothing here is real, try and, Searching farther, it almost seems to live until it moves on, turns 'round, just can't seem to lose it.'"_

_And he recognised her. "You? What are you doing here?"_

_"'Hold fast, hold on, nothing is a dream until you wake up, cry out, now it isn't real,'" she was gazing at him steadily, "'Now you hold fast, hold on, just can't lose it now.'"_

_The last time he saw her was years ago and here she was, in a den in Flyspeck, county Nowhere._

_He was in Bavaria, almost exactly a year later. There was information to be found here but he was in one of his black moods and just couldn't be arsed to find it. What was the point? Was there even a point? He was dead, again, a string of dead men, dead names, names of the dead stolen and used to prop up the identity of a ghost._

_His target was schmoozing with a woman, anyways, had been for nearly an hour. The nightclub was filled with theatric smoke speared by coloured LED lights, and intoxicants of all natures flowed for those with deep enough pockets. Bitcoin was trading at nearly a thousand USD and his pocket was very deep at the moment._

_The woman left his target and swayed towards him, singing softly as she approached him. **Dancer, mechanically inclined, typist, probably admin assistant or data entry clerk, sober--** His thoughts broke off as she slid onto the bench beside him and smiled._

_"'Never give up, never give up on a good thing. Never give up, never give up on a good thing.'" She slipped a microSD card into his pocket._

_"How do you find me?" But she only winked and smiled. She stayed with him for a while, never flirting more than a nightclub setting required, coaxing him to sing along with her, making him wish he could have his violin to accompany her. Then she slid from the bench and disappeared into the club. Leaving him with everything he needed on the SD card._

_So, so long, too long. Yet another name, yet another zombie resurrected to walk the night, yet another strand of Moriarty's web. It was neverending and it had been so long._

_"'A singer in a smoky room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume.'" English, here? His mind focused on the soft singing and then skewed, incredulous. "'For a smile, you can share the night, it goes on and on and on and on.'" No no no no, it couldn't be her, how does she keep finding him? He was in bloody Georgia of all places, it couldn't possibly be her._

_But it was. "'Don't stop believing, hold on to that feeling.'" Reminding him of why he was doing this. Who he was doing it for. Remembering him._

John reached over and switched off the radio, "You know, it's really quite unnerving, the way you people do that." 

Sherlock blinked and looked over, "I wasn't asleep."

"I know you weren't," John sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, giving Rosie her early-morning bottle. In the blue hours before dawn, everything was quiet and still. "Have you been playing all night?"

Sherlock shook his head, "No. Long enough for them to sleep. I took a few breaks, then resumed when Minerva would start to get restless." He pushed himself upright on the couch and patted down his dressing gown, then started feeling among the couch cushions. 

"Looking for spare siblings?"

Sherlock flashed him a wicked grin, "Might have fallen in with the phones and loose change." He frowned and his hand brought up a small packet. He stared at it and John started giggling. 

"They must have fallen out of her pocket."

Sherlock found his phone then looked at the box of tampons again. Something nagged him as odd about it but he didn't know much about menstrual supplies other than that sanitary towels made good first-aid field dressings. "I suppose I'll just put them in the loo. She might go looking for them," Sherlock said. 

When he returned, John was grinning at him. "So you believe this, then?"

"Yes. It explains too many things, and you yourself have often said, the only kind of genius our family was missing was a mad scientist inventor."

John had to suppress his giggles, "Well now you've got the complete set." He shook his head, "It just seems strange to me, that's all, I mean, people don't usually take teenage girls seriously. They'd believe a teenage Mycroft could have invented that stuff but a teenage girl?" Sherlock frowned. "It just seems off to me, that's all. who's my sleepy girl, hmm? such a sleepy girl." He put her up on his shoulder and patted her back. "I've never seen Mycroft like that, before. He looked almost alive." Sherlock sniggered then frowned again. "What time did he leave?"

"About twenty minutes before you woke up," Sherlock replied, "They were awake for a while longer after I sent them to bed, singing to each other. Sorting it out, I suppose."

John shook his head. He nestled Rosie back into her bassinet and gazed at her for a few moments. "Your parents seem like such nice people," he said slowly, softly.

Sherlock smirked, "I have a list of complaints. Mycroft has a file." His face grew serious again, "Starting to understand what was in it."

John nodded, "And you're right, it **does** make some sense of how he handled Eurus, if he had precedent, if they'd already erased one sister."

Sherlock nodded then scowled, "My family has a really shite way of treating girls." He glanced over at Rosie while John stifled his giggles. "One more thing for the list."

"List?"

"Mm. I said I had a list of complaints. It's become an Opposite List - do the opposite of everything on the list." He smiled down at Rosie, asleep again in her bassinet. "Maybe I'll do better that way."

"Can't hurt. Well.... can't hurt more than the first ways did." John sighed heavily, "I know you'll do your best. Just like I'm sure they did their best."

Sherlock was silent for a few moments. "Well... Considering the outcomes for all three of us - four of us, now... I really hope my best is better than theirs." John reached out to take his hand, silent. 

They looked up at the sound of the bathroom door closing. John got up and went to the refrigerator for eggs to get breakfast started. Shortly after, Minerva shuffled out, wrapped in a quilt. John arched an eyebrow, "You're at least wearing knickers under that, right?"

"And one of my t-shirts," Sherlock grinned. Minerva just flopped into a chair and slumped until her forehead was resting against Sherlock's microscope. 

"Not a morning person, I take it," John chuckled.

Sherlock smiled at her, "I'll get you some tea, you can have the couch." She made an incoherent noise and got up to collapse onto the couch as directed. Sherlock sat beside her and handed her a mug. "I put your, um, supplies in the loo," Sherlock said. She nodded and relaxed again. Sherlock reached up to take a plate from John, passed it to Minerva, and took his own. "So, you're my sister. My big sister."

She grinned at him around a bite of egg.

"And Mycroft is your twin."

She grinned again and put down her fork to sign, 'He's the evil one.'

"Well that goes without saying," Sherlock chuckled, "John watches CeeBeeBees with Rosie in the morning, will that bother you?"

Minerva shook her head. She finished her breakfast and curled up on the couch with her tea. Sherlock tucked himself up onto his chair, resting his chin on his knees. John settled into his own chair with Rosie's bassinet, and flipped on the telly.

John looked forward to this, his peaceful morning routine. He felt guilty to admit it, even to himself, but as much as he missed Mary, he really did feel happier sharing his life with Sherlock. Sherlock was completely invested in Rosie and had taken over the late-night feedings and nappy changes without asking. He sat at his microscope with Rosie in his lap, telling her everything he was seeing, all the details of his experiments. He was completely invested in John too, which still surprised him. Or perhaps it shouldn't, he thought, remembering _"This is family!" "That's **why** he stays!"_ Of course, this had to be hard on Sherlock, suddenly having a little sister he'd deleted and now a big sister he didn't even know about. He glanced up at Minerva and stared. "Sherlock..."

Sherlock followed his gaze: Minerva sat frozen on the couch, eyes widening, mouth dropping open. He flung himself in front of her, "What do you need?!"

She flailed her hands and blurted out, "Forge!"

Sherlock paused and thought. "Difficult but I think doable."

"Lab!"

"That I can provide!" He pulled out his phone and pecked off a few texts. His phone pinged a reply. "Forge is go, tell him what you need." He gave her his phone and ran to his room to throw on some clothes. Minerva darted in to grab her own clothes then disappeared into the bathroom. 

John sat in his chair, rocking Rosie's bassinet with a little smile. Life with Holmes geniuses certainly wasn't dull. 

* * * *

"Sooooo.... a client, you said," Greg said. 

Sherlock hesitated for a moment, then decided to leave it at, "Yes." They were standing in Greg's garage. "Thanks for letting her use your forge."

"No problem," Greg said, "I'm not using it much right now." Hard trance music was blasting from Minerva's phone in Greg's phone dock speakers. "What exactly is she making?"

"I've no idea."

"It's an unusual combination of metals she's smelted, that's all."

"Mmm."

Minerva had been tightly focused for hours and Sherlock was fascinated. She clearly knew what she was doing and had an end result in mind. She'd smelted metals together into an alloy and poured a pair of billets. She'd prepared some compound with the chemicals she'd requested, while the billets cooled. Once the billets had cooled enough, she picked up Greg's hammers and started shaping them.

"To be honest, I didn't think those metals could be combined."

Sherlock hesitated again before answering, "I'm told she's very inventive."

"Uh huh. To be honest, Sherlock, she's kind of creeping me out. Where did you find her?" 

"I told you, she's a client. She found me."

Now the billets were taking shape into a pair of hollow cylinders. "Those are starting to look a bit like bracers. Is she an armourer?"

Sherlock paused. _"She had developed an alloy that was entirely bullet-proof. She wanted to make Wonder Woman's bracelets."_ "Possibly."

Greg glanced at him, "Sudden urge for cosplay?"

_"She's seen the new movie. There's no telling what ideas she's gotten from it."_ "I don't think so. I think it's something else." _Now I wish I'd seen the new movie._

Minerva continued to work on the bracers, surfacing from her hyperfocus only long enough to drink some water to combat the heat of the forge. Eventually she had a pair of polished bracers, which she treated with the compound she'd created. Finally, she took something from her shoe and fitted them into the bracers. There was a brief whine, then silence.

Greg glanced at Sherlock, "Umm, what was that?"

"I think we're about to find out."

Minerva walked out of the garage, sweating and grinning triumphantly, and looked around for something not easily damaged. She spotted Greg's bins and looked around inquiringly.

Greg nodded, then whispered to Sherlock, "What is she going to do to my bins?"

"Well... She cut mine in half."

"She.. _what?_ " Greg's head snapped around back to Minerva, who had brought up the bracers and crossed her forearms in front of her. 

The concussive shock wave blew the bins into the air and forced the men back against the garage wall. 

" _Shit!_ " Greg gasped. He stared at Sherlock. "A _**client**_?!"

Sherlock shrugged, "She thinks she's being hunted."

Greg looked incredulous, "Ya don't say!"

Minerva came running up with a concerned expression, signing urgently. "No, no we're not hurt," Sherlock answered, "We're fine. A little startled." He went to help her fetch the bins back. When he returned, he said, "She wants to know how much she owes you."

"What? Oh. Um. Uh. The.. value of the metals, I guess," Greg said, still staring at his bins. Then he whispered, "That's the scariest woman I've ever met, and I've met your sister!"

Sherlock stared at him, then glanced back at Minerva. She signed at him and beckoned. "Oh, uh, we'll be back!" Sherlock said and hurried after her.


	6. Love Stinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where does she get those wonderful toys? Don't just stand there - ask her!

The trip to the train station was uneventful and Minerva had been quite chatty in BSL and the occasional song lyric. She was so casual, Sherlock wondered whether she'd forgotten about being followed, then noticed where her glances darted to. Entering the station, she headed purposefully towards a bank of lockers, then slowed. She stopped, frowning, turning her head this way and that. She glanced at Sherlock and flicked her eyes towards one particular locker. He took a step towards it and

Axe deodorant, faint but clear, and clearly emanating from the locker. _People are so disappointing._ He looked at Minerva, who was grinning and holding a tiny spray phial. She gestured for him to cover his nose and mouth. He pulled his scarf over his face, wondering what she was going to do and fearing that it was going to be terribly entertaining. 

She spritzed the phial into the locker vents and waited.

The most nauseatingly foetid odour wafted out, making Sherlock gag with its rotting-faeces pungency. And not just him -- whoever was inside the locker began slamming against it to get out. Sherlock took the key from Minerva and opened the locker. Her duffel bag fell out and rolled violently. Sherlock unzipped it, upended it, and grinned down at the retching man who fell out, "Hello! Lovely weather, don't you think?" 

The man snarled and reached back for the weapon he'd been holding, but Sherlock seized his arm, hooked him across the jaw, and spun him around to face Minerva. She gave the man a feral grin and waved, and sprayed him full-on with the odourant. The man staggered, vomited, and stumbled away into the station, retching. 

"He won't have been alone," Sherlock said urgently. Minerva nodded, searching the rubbish bins for the dumped contents of her duffel bag and packing them back in. She held up a small bag of sanitary towels with a satisfied smirk, and packed them into the bag. Then she looked at Sherlock and tipped her head towards the station exit.

Out in the main station, people were reacting to the horrible stench. People nearer the source started to retch and vomit. As the screaming started, Sherlock leaned towards Minerva and murmured, "Is this going to harm anybody?" She shook her head. "Just lose a lot of lunches?" She grinned and nodded. "Fair enough."

As they neared the exit, she took out a second phial and sprayed a mist in front of herself then walked through it. She sprayed another mist before Sherlock and gestured for him to do the same. "Antidote?" he asked. She nodded. "I suppose it would spoil your escape if you were to go about smelling like an outhouse." Outside the station, Sherlock's phone connected and pinged with multiple missed texts. 

He pushed call on one of them. "Hel-looooooo, I've just had a rather interesting experience. No no, it's not a gas attack, although I suppose Axe deodorant could certainly be mistaken for one. She used a spray." He raised his eyebrows at the noise Mycroft made. 

"Diogenes. Now," Mycroft snapped, and quit the call. 

* * * *

"We have informed the press that it was a sewer gas leak," Mycroft said. He fixed Sherlock with an iron stare. "I left her in your care, Sherlock. You were **supposed** to keep her out of trouble!"

Sherlock made a show of searching his memory, "Mmm, nope, sorry, that was nowhere in the instructions."

"Did I not tell you she is dangerous?"

"You also told me she's in danger. That part proved to be correct."

"What on earth did you think you were doing?!"

"She was having a brainstorm!" Sherlock said, "I'm not getting in the way of anybody's brainstorm. It was all coming together, you get in the way of that, you can lose the whole thing!"

" **What** was coming together?"

Minerva pushed back her sleeves to reveal her new bracers. "She wanted a forge," Sherlock explained, "Lestrade is a hobby blacksmith, I asked if she could use his. She made these lovely bracelets annnd then offered to pay him for the metals. We went to the train station to get her belongings and discovered an assassin hidden in her kit. The smell of his deodorant gave him away." 

Mycroft passed a hand over his face with a look of pained disappointment. "People are so predictable," he sighed. He glared at Minerva, "And then you used That Spray."

"It was wonderful. Smoked him right out, him and the other agents. There were more of them, all hanging around the blast zone." Sherlock emptied his pockets, throwing out wallets and ID and papers, "I picked their pockets while they were vomiting."

Mycroft looked grudgingly impressed. He looked back at Minerva, "You needed money? I take it that's what you were after when you went there."

She nodded and took out a small packet. Sherlock blinked but Mycroft looked expectant. She opened the plastic wrapper but instead of the expected sanitary napkin, there was a folded piece of paper with a QR code and a long series of numbers. Sherlock's eyes widened, "That's a Bitcoin paper wallet."

Mycroft nodded and took it, reaching for his phone. "She was an early adopter in Bitcoin. She found it amusing. It's also proven to be a useful way to store some of the proceeds from her spray."

"Proceeds?"

"Oh yes. It started off as a prank product until some online reviews went viral. The sales **really** escalated when certain law enforcement and security agencies discovered it was very effective for crowd dispersal."

Sherlock blinked, "She's made millions off of _fart spray_?"

"Do you think I'm proud of this?"

"You should be," Sherlock retorted, then grinned at Minerva, "Hunted fugitives have to be practical."

Mycroft sneered then looked at his phone and his eyebrows jumped, "There are five bitcoins on here. This will take some time to liquidate." Minerva shook her head and signed the amount she needed. Mycroft looked relieved, "Ah, fine. I can change that." His phone chirped, then he reached for his wallet and counted out notes. 

'Thank you,' she signed, taking them and reaching up to kiss his cheek. 

"And you were an early adopter?" Sherlock mused, "Do you mine?" She nodded. "That explains how you finance your development." 

“Indeed,” Mycroft sighed. He tapped the pile of goodies that Sherlock had delivered, “It will take me some time to process this, since I will have to do it through unofficial channels.”

‘I should go deliver this to your friend,’ Minerva signed to Sherlock.

Sherlock frowned, “You’d want to? Knowing there’s definitely someone after you?”

She shrugged, ‘If I let that stop me, I’d never get anything done.’

* * * *

“I said we’d be back,” Sherlock said. 

Lestrade just grinned at him. “Thanks,” he said as Minerva counted out the money she owed. “You missed a bit of excitement. Heard there was a gas leak over at the station.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock said, “Sewer gas, so I’m told.” He glanced around and then time slowed to treacle as Minerva turned her head and brought her forearm up and something pinged off to hit the wall behind Sherlock’s head. He turned to see that it was a tiny dart of some kind as Minerva shoved him back and stepped in front of him, her expressionless face scanning the buildings up and down the mews. Movement caught Sherlock’s eye and he turned his body bringing a roundhouse elbow into the solar plexus of the man who’d appeared behind him, twisting forward again unfolding his arm into the throat of a third man. Minerva’s arm came up and another dart pinged off her bracer as she shoved Sherlock away again and danced back, reaching into her pocket. The men advanced towards her. She crossed her forearms and the concussive shock wave blew them back and rattled the windows of the buildings. Then she was gone. 

“’Client.’” Sherlock looked around to see Greg staring at him fixedly, “Your ‘client’ just blew a bunch of guys away and literally **vanished** into thin air. Exactly how interested in this should I be?”

Sherlock chewed his lip for a moment, “My brother is invested in this.”

Lestrade paused. “Right,” he said at last and held up his phone, “So I’ll delete this after I’ve sent it to you.”


	7. We Belong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minerva frowned and tapped the image. “’The silicon sister with her manager mister told me I got what it takes. She said I’ll turn you on into something strong, play the song with the funky breaks.’”

“And then we stopped for chips,” Sherlock finished. Mycroft fixed him with a Look. “They’re very good chips,” Sherlock said, “Even Eurus liked them.” 

Mycroft squinted his eyes. Then he turned to look at Minerva, who was currently a disembodied head floating above the couch. “Will you please take off that cloak? You look ridiculous.” She grinned and shrugged off her invisibility cloak and wadded it up to put back into her pocket. Mycroft shook his head with another sigh. The smell of the chips was making his stomach growl, a situation not helped by John banging open the door of 221B with take-away. Finally his laptop completed the file transfer and he started the video. 

He watched it several times then slowed it to play frame by frame. Lestrade’s phone took very good video and needed only a little enhancement. Finally he nodded, “Those are Lady Smallwood’s men.”

Sherlock took a plastic evidence bag from his jacket pocket, “They were trying to hit her with one of these.”

Mycroft examined it. “Tranquiliser dart,” he said, and looked at Minerva, “Whatever Lady Smallwood wants with you, she wants you alive. There’s that, at least.”

“That’s new, though, isn’t it?” John asked, “I mean, you said the government wants her dead?”

Mycroft frowned, “Yes. This **is** a new development and I know nothing about it.” He sighed heavily and looked at Minerva, “I don’t see it changing our next course of action, however.”

“And what’s that?” John asked. 

“They have to fake her death again,” Sherlock said softly. 

Mycroft’s lips thinned and he closed his eyes for a moment. “I was able to crack the phones you nicked from those agents at the train station,” he told Sherlock, “We were able to trace most of the calls. Quite a few of them went to Ireland.”

Sherlock frowned, “ _Ireland?_ ” 

“A bit surprising, yes.”

John frowned as well, “Wasn’t Moriarty Irish?”

“Indeed,” Mycroft agreed, “And his network was quite pervasive, on an international scale.”

“But… Moriarty was younger than Sherlock.”

“It’s still a place to start,” Sherlock said. He pulled a stack of paper from the printer and started pinning them to the wall. He pinned up a map of Ireland and a picture of Moriarty, and ran a string between them. Sticky notes with “Locker Assassin”, “Station Assassin 1”, and so forth were tacked up and strings run from them to Ireland and to Minerva’s image in the centre. He ran strings from her to Mycroft and himself, tacked up “unknown car assassins, mid-1980s” and ran a string to that. He tacked up the evidence bag with the dart next to an image of Lady Smallwood and ran strings from her to Mycroft and Minerva. He tacked up images of Minerva’s spray, a Bitcoin symbol, Harry Potter’s cloak, and Wonder Woman, and ran strings. He ran strings between himself, Mycroft, and Moriarty. Then he shrugged, printed off a picture of Eurus, and tacked that up as well, with a string to Moriarty.

Minerva frowned and tapped it. “’The silicon sister with her manager mister told me I got what it takes. She said I’ll turn you on into something strong, play the song with the funky breaks.’”

They stared at her. Finally John shook his head, “Sorry, what? You lost me there.”

“What I did catch was that she met Eurus,” Sherlock said, “And Moriarty?”

Minerva shook her head and lifted her hands, spelling out Culverton Smith.

“You were approached by Eurus and Smith?” Mycroft asked, “What for?”

“’Money, it’s a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.’”

Sherlock frowned, “Money?”

“Were they looking for backing?” Mycroft asked.

“Smith had an empire, why would he need backing?”

“Unless they were recruiting? For Moriarty’s network?” Mycroft suggested.

Sherlock paused and looked at him, “Smith was an active serial killer for years. He did have ties to Moriarty and as we learned, so did Eurus.” He looked at Minerva, “How long ago was this?”

‘A couple of years ago,’ Minerva signed. 

“And what did you tell them?” Mycroft said.

“’I’m alright Jack keep your hands off of my stack.’”

“Good girl,” Mycroft said over the chuckling. 

Sherlock printed another image then went to his evidence wall and started moving pictures and threads. “So she’s approached by Eurus and Smith and sends them packing,” he said, stringing threads between the pictures, “Moriarty’s network didn’t die with him. Although I made a significant dent in it, I couldn’t stamp it out entirely. It was much too complex for that and too well entrenched.”

“Implying that it’s been around for longer than Moriarty was active,” Mycroft agreed.

“As far back as the 80s?”

“It’s worth looking into,” Mycroft nodded.

* * * *

Mycroft was breaking. He clutched his cup of tea, drinking it like he wished it was whiskey. John was in the kitchen, washing up. Sherlock slowly sat down beside his brother, watching him with concern, silent. “I’m glad,” Mycroft whispered, “I’m glad you finally got to meet her.”

“I’ve known her for years,” Sherlock admitted. At Mycroft’s look of puzzled surprise, he explained, “We’ve met several times. I just never knew who she was, or that she’s my sister.”

“I’m glad you can finally know. I’m glad I can finally tell you.”

Sherlock shook his head, “I don’t understand why they thought that would be easier on you. It’s clearly wrong. You clearly belong together.”

“I’ve always felt that way, yes,” Mycroft whispered. 

“And this is how your life has been? Is this the only time you’ve been able to see each other again?”

“Stolen moments, here and there,” Mycroft replied, “Sometimes she would hire out through temp agencies. The worst was that time in my late twenties, she’d been brought in as a temp into the office of one of the ministries. We had to pretend we didn’t know each other. I took every opportunity I could to be with her, took her to lunch and so forth… People thought that I was courting her, it was terrible.” He chuckled at the memory.

“When I was in Tibet,” Sherlock’s voice was soft, “I met people who believed that fraternal twins were the reincarnations of married couples who didn’t want to be parted.”

To his surprise, Mycroft didn’t scoff. “There might be something to that,” he said instead, “When we were small, the teachers asked me to draw my dream girl, and for Minerva to draw her dream boy.”

Sherlock snorted, “How heteronormative.”

“Quite, won’t someone think of the children? Well, we were very young of course and didn’t quite understand what they meant. We took it literally, as in, we drew pictures of people we’d seen in our dreams, in our sleep. When we saw each other’s pictures, we recognised them as ourselves. Of course, this was before I could talk, so it was more like-” He mimed enthusiastically pointing to an imaginary paper then to himself and flailing his hands wildly. Sherlock grinned. “We were both overjoyed by that. But the odd thing was, the people in the pictures didn’t look anything like us. So you might well be right about that.” Sherlock sat back and frowned, honestly not sure what to think.

The loo door opened and Minerva emerged. John looked up from the dishes. “Did you, um… You must have had a home, before all this started? Sherlock thought you were attacked and went on the run, surely you weren’t able to make any arrangements? Is there anything you need? Medications? Did you have a pet? Oh God, I hope you don’t have a pet, it’s been days…”

‘No, no pets,’ Minerva signed. 

John noted her wistful expression and smiled, “Sherlock’s always wanted a dog. Well, he’s never said so but it’s pretty obvious. But with our lifestyle…” He sighed and looked at Rosie in her bassinet, “I worry enough about Rosie.”

Minerva nodded, ‘I learned a long time ago.’

“The hard way?” And was relieved when she shook her head. “Well, if there’s anything you need, I’m sure we can find a way to get it. Sherlock’s homeless network is extensive.”

‘Most of my workshop can be replaced. I had some of my medications in my bag, though I’m running low on them.’

“I’ll prescribe you whatever you need,” John said immediately, “Any time, whatever name you’re using, you come to me.”

‘Thank you,’ she signed, and John knew he’d just relieved a tremendous worry. He put the last of the dishes away then took down a tray and poured out four glasses of port. He passed the tray to Minerva and picked up Rosie’s bassinet. Sherlock got up from the couch and moved back to his chair as Minerva set the tray down and sat next to Mycroft.

John set the bassinet down beside his own chair. He took a glass of port and sipped it. “I’ve told Minerva that I’ll take care of her medical needs, no matter what identity she’s using.”

“Thank you, John,” Mycroft said, “That is always a concern for those who work in the shadows.” He sighed, “I have located a few potentially available identities and I’m having them verified, discreetly.”

Minerva looked sad but resigned. “Is this really necessary?” Sherlock asked in a low voice. 

“She’s been targeted twice just in the time she’s been here,” Mycroft replied, “She’s putting you in danger just by being here. All of you.” And he glanced pointedly at the bassinet beside John. 

John looked away. He looked at Rosie, sound asleep, blowing little bubbles of saliva between her pink lips. “There is one that’s available,” he said quietly. 

Mycroft regarded him. “Yes.” He considered for a moment then added, “I thought it might be too… sensitive.”

John stared down at Rosie, named after an assassin who had taken the name of a stillborn baby. He didn’t even know her full name, even now. Even now. “1972,” he said, and glanced up at Minerva. Yes, she looked about right. He passed a hand down his face then stood up and squared his shoulders, then extended a hand towards her, “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Morstan.” Mycroft gave him a look that was… difficult to fathom, but he was pretty sure there was gratitude in there somewhere. 

“No,” Sherlock said quietly. 

Mycroft nodded understanding, “There are others…”

“No,” Sherlock said again. He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Minerva, “That isn’t why you came here.” He stood up, still looking at Minerva, “You came to me because you wanted me to find out who was behind this. Not just who’s chasing you now but who started it, who’s been behind it all along. Because you want it stopped. You’re tired of running. You’re the same age as Mycroft, you’re nearing fifty. You gave up your life at seventeen and you want it back while you still can. You faked your death to keep us all safe and it worked and I’m grateful for that. But now we’re grown and we’re not vulnerable anymore. I have my homeless network and my contacts within the Yard and my international contacts. Mycroft has a legion of agents at his command, access to the CCTV system and an international community both on and off the record. You came to me because you needed help and we can help you but we can help you best as a family. The only identity you need is the one that’s been available for thirty one years.”

Mycroft had his arms around Minerva and had given her his pocket square. “Ordinarily I’d agree, but there’s still the matter that the British government wants her eliminated.”

Sherlock tapped the evidence bag, “And these tell us the British government wants her alive, as least the British government in the form of Lady Smallwood. She’s still your ally. Minerva’s in your custody now, so that should be enough to satisfy Lady Smallwood should she come asking. Her enemies will be expecting this again, they’ll be looking out for it.” He looked at Minerva again, “Face them as yourself, as Minerva Holmes. Let them know who they’re dealing with, let them figure it out. Whoever they are, they may think twice when they realise who else they’ve got to contend with.” Mycroft and Minerva looked at each other. Minerva looked apprehensive. “I’ll let you sort it out while we put Rosie to bed.”

John took his cue and gathered up Rosie’s bassinet. Sherlock followed him up the stairs to Rosie’s room. “Are you sure about this?” he asked quietly.

“You are,” Sherlock replied just as quietly. John did not deny it. “This is the only avenue left open. They’ve faked her death so many times, whoever’s after her will be expecting it now. This will surprise them and it’ll give me more information to work with so I can find out who’s driving the whole thing.” 

John said nothing. He put Rosie into her sleeper, kissed her forehead, and laid her down in her crib. “You were willing to give Minerva Mary’s name,” Sherlock said softly. 

John nodded, not looking at him. “It wasn’t actually hers anyways,” he said in a toneless voice, “Might as well do some good with it. It’s associated with us, I thought maybe it might let her keep visiting.” He passed a hand down his face and sighed, “I don’t know what I was thinking, to be honest.”

“It was a good thought.”

John sighed again and leaned back against Sherlock, still gazing at Rosie. “I wonder what it would have been like, if her plan hadn’t gone awry, if her past hadn’t caught up to her. Husband, child, quiet life… I wonder what might have happened.”

“’..wasted too much time, to give you up that easy to the doubts that complicate your mind..’” John listened as Mycroft’s voice floated up from downstairs. “Craziest way of arguing I’ve ever encountered,” he chuckled, “They really do sound like a couple.”

“Mmm.”

“’…maybe I just wouldn’t know what to do with myself anyways.. If we become a habit, if we distort the facts, now there’s no looking forward, and there’s no turning back, still you say…’” “She’s frightened,” Sherlock reported. 

“Do you blame her?”

“No. If they find out she’s still alive, she endangers the lives of everyone she cares about.”

John shot him a Look, certain he was hearing something else in Sherlock’s haunted tone but unable to fathom what it was. 

“’..all I know is you’re half of the flesh and blood that makes me whole…’”

“Christ,” John wiped his eyes, “We can’t let them do this, Sherlock.”

Sherlock sighed, “I know. But it has to be their decision.”

They turned and went back down the stairs.


	8. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “’Oh you pretty thing, you,’” Minerva said suddenly, “’You’ve got an image problem. You need to think about your brand, how you want the world to see you. How you want Mr. World to see you.’”
> 
> Eurus stared and a muscle in her cheek twitched. “’Are you fucking with me right now?’”

Sherlock wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see in Minerva’s flat, but he was irrationally relieved to find that the Holmes children’s tendency towards domestic ineptitude was intact. It was as much organized chaos as 221B was, with power tools and blueprints instead of body parts and evidence maps. It was also, Sherlock noticed, ready to pack up at a moment’s notice. It didn’t take Minerva long at all to have all of the important things, her clothes, and essentials, packed up. Sherlock’s network assistants took the crates and spirited them away while “Helen Westfield” settled up with the landlord. Then she grabbed her bag, multi-tools, a wheeled case, a briefcase, and her umbrellas. She tapped her smart watch a few times then signaled she was ready to go. 

In the cab back to 221B, Minerva lifted her hands and signed, ‘What made you decide to put Eurus on your wall? You didn’t know about her visiting me yet.’

‘No,’ Sherlock signed, ‘But she had also been placed into an institution by Uncle Rudy, and she had ties to Moriarty. It was an unlikely long shot but a good one, when you confirmed she’d visited you.’

‘I hadn’t realised who she was at first,’ Minerva admitted, ‘I wasn’t surprised to be approached by Smith, that sort of thing has been happening all my life. Lives.’ Sherlock smiled his quirky half-smile. ‘But yes, with the added information, it’s very strange. Why Eurus? Did Smith know that she’s related to me? Did he know something about me?’

‘Did Eurus?’

‘No, she didn’t seem to recognise me at all. She tried to talk to me like anybody else and was rather put out when I didn’t answer. Not surprising, most people are.’

‘So Smith might have known something.’

‘Unless it really was a coincidence.’

‘But as our brother is fond of saying, the universe is rarely so lazy.’

Minerva burst into laughter, ‘That’s Japanese Sign Language sign for “big brother!”’

Sherlock smirked widely, ‘Yes, very good.’

‘You are a terrible person!’

‘Is this really such a surprise?’

The cab pulled up and they went up the seventeen steps to 221B. John was home and feeding Rosie. He watched as Sherlock crossed to his evidence wall and began adding sticky notes to it. He looked up at Minerva, “I brought my kit with me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to do a quick general physical examination to get a baseline. I’ll keep your chart here so it’s off the record.” Minerva nodded. 

‘Two questions I keep coming back to,’ Sherlock signed finally, ‘How did Eurus know about Moriarty in the first place? And how did she know about Smith?’ He turned to Minerva and said, “You called him her ‘manager mister’; was that just lyric hyperbole or did you mean that? Did he think he had control of Eurus?”

Minerva nodded but had to wait until John was finished taking her blood pressure before she could answer, ‘Yes, I thought she was his secretary or EA when they first arrived. It was very quickly apparent to me that it was otherwise but I don’t think he knew that.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Sherlock signed, ‘She used his addiction to killing to gain access to me, disguised as his daughter Faith, so she knew him for long enough to have learned what he had done to her.’

‘Hence the question,’ Minerva nodded, ‘And this Moriarty?’

John glanced up from the ear scope he was peering through, “Mycroft said she’d developed an interest. But he never said how she knew about it, did he?”

“To be honest, I don’t think it even occurred to him to wonder.”

“No and he missed that Sherrinford’s governor had been compromised,” John agreed.

‘Well, he’s been missing half his brain,’ Minerva signed impishly and both men laughed. 

“True dat,” Sherlock grinned. 

Minerva frowned thoughtfully and blew out a sigh, ‘I think I need to talk to Eurus.’

John shook his head, “Eurus isn’t… The way she talks… Sherlock, have you told her?”

‘She’s pretty much catatonic,’ Sherlock signed, ‘She doesn’t respond to anyone.’

‘She’ll respond to me.’

‘If you’re certain…’ 

“Sherlock?”

“She met Eurus before, John, and sent her packing, unsuccessful. Besides,” Sherlock sighed, “She’s right. We need answers.” He took out his phone and dialed. Minerva tapped her smartwatch a few times then nodded. 

“She wants to talk to the other one,” Sherlock said when the call connected, “And I’m forced to agree. That visitation strikes us both as odd. There’s a bit much there to be coincidence.”

Mycroft paused for a moment, “She’s unresponsive though.”

“Minerva seems certain she’ll respond to her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Only one way to find out.”

“I’m not sure it’s worth satisfying that particular curiosity.”

“Me neither but finding out more about those particular links would be useful.”

“Very well,” Mycroft sighed, “I’ll make the arrangements.”

* * * *

‘My car is almost here,’ Minerva signed. She handed Sherlock his coat and pulled on her own.

“Your… car? What?” John pulled on his own jacket and followed them out onto the pavement.

Minerva checked her smartwatch and looked up the road. A sleek midnight blue sedan turned a corner and headed towards them, driven by… Minerva. Sherlock and John looked at each other, wondering exactly how many babies had been in that litter. Then Minerva opened the driver’s door, threw her briefcase into the back seat and got in, merging with the other Minerva. She flickered briefly then grinned up at them. 

“A hologram?” Sherlock guessed, getting in on the passenger side. John slid into the back seat, pushing over the briefcase. 

Minerva nodded and sang, “’Here in my car, I feel safest of all, I can lock all my doors, it’s the only way to live, in Kehaar.’”

A screen on the dashboard flicked on and a computer generated image signed ‘Welcome back, Isabeau.’

‘Thank you, Kehaar. Here are the coordinates.’ She tapped them in and the car pulled away from the kerb. She gestured to Sherlock, ‘Blackavar, access level 4.’ 

“Acknowledged,” the car said, “State access for voice print. Hold for retina scan.”

Sherlock looked puzzled for an instant then said, “Sherlock Holmes, access… Blackavar? Blackavar.”

“Acknowledged.” 

‘Yona,’ Minerva signed, indicating John, ‘Access level 4.’

John cleared his throat, “Captain John Watson, M.D., Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, RAMC, retired. Access… um, sorry, what was that? I couldn’t quite…”

“Yona, John, she’s got a _Watership Down_ theme going on, remember?”

“Right, uh… access Yona. Yona? Really?”

“Yona the Hedgehog,” Sherlock grinned. 

“Acknowledged.”

“How does she even know about that? Sherlock, why does she know about that?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped his seatbelt into place, “But I have a feeling this isn’t going to be an ordinary car ride.”

* * * *

Mycroft scrolled through the report, firmly squashing down the anxiety that twisted his gut into knots. Lady Smallwood had requested this meeting and designated it a priority, though he couldn’t imagine why. A foreign agent living in England under an identity stolen from a deceased citizen with an appropriate birth date, discovered and eliminated. Then he saw the name of the deceased citizen.

“It drew my interest, of course,” Lady Smallwood said, gazing out of the window, “‘Minerva Holmes’, it’s highly unusual, and as your family has a fondness for unusual names, I was curious.”

“I can understand why you would be,” Mycroft replied, “But Holmes is a very common surname.”

“I didn’t know you had another sister,” said Lady Smallwood, and Mycroft froze, “I’m sorry. And I’m so sorry to have to tell you that her identity was stolen by this agent.”

“It’s unfortunate but not unexpected. Minerva was not quite seventeen when she died.”

“Struck by a car, yes. But you’ve never mentioned her.”

“Minerva had been in an institution since she was a child.”

“Much like your younger sister, ‘the other one’, as you prefer to call her the few times you do talk about her.”

“Quite,” Mycroft said, “Thank you for informing me that my late sister’s identity had been usurped. An unfortunate but not unexpected hazard in our line of work. Will that be all?”

“No, it won’t be, I’m afraid,” said Lady Smallwood, still gazing out of the window, “You see, I looked her up. You talk about Sherlock often and you mention Eurus from time to time but you’ve never, ever mentioned that you had a twin sister. I found her record of birth and announcement, you see. I found very little about her. I found a few medical records and her record of admission to the institution. I found her record of death and the circumstances around it struck me as a little out of the ordinary. She was killed walking along a ravine near the institution, late at night. But what was she doing out at that hour, at a facility that was fairly well respected for its security? What struck me as odd was that her body was never recovered. From a ravine? I looked up the location, the creek bed that used to run at the bottom of it has been dry for decades.” Mycroft felt his scalp start to crawl. “So I did some more digging and I found a few case files, from a number of agencies. Really quite surprising, a little girl like her attracting attention like that? The more I looked, the more it seemed she had been targeted for elimination but I couldn’t imagine why. But two of the cases had a few pictures.” She finally turned to face him, “Imagine my surprise when I realized I was looking at none other than Project Eleven.”

Mycroft’s heart began to pound.

“You’ve always been rather… odd about Project Eleven. You would have been only sixteen yourself but you finished school at a very early age. So at the time of Minerva’s death, you would have been taking your Master’s degree in Homeland Security, is that correct?”

“It is,” Mycroft’s voice was steady only through sheer willpower. 

“And you had already won an internship position. You were already learning the business. You faked her death, is that correct?” Mycroft was silent. “Was that your first? Faking your first death at sixteen, my God, I can’t even imagine. And she was your twin sister. No wonder you’ve never mentioned her. Not even when we asked you to retire her.”

“I do what is required for the security of the nation,” Mycroft replied urbanely. 

“Yes…” said Lady Smallwood, and there was something significant about the way she said it that made Mycroft’s skin prickle. “And she is alive and has been sighted in your brother’s company. And now I should like you to tell me what she’s involved in.”

Mycroft sucked in his breath and blew out a soft sigh, collecting his thoughts and weighing his responses. “Sherlock believes she is being hunted for her latest invention. She went to him hoping that he could uncover which party is responsible this time.”

“And what is this invention?”

“A functioning lightsabre.”

“That’s not it,” Lady Smallwood said briskly, “Look at this, Mycroft. Look at what she’s been doing. She’s been trading bitcoin, both as currency in purchases and transacting between fiat and crypto. Look at what she’s been purchasing. Graphite. Collectors. Plasma generators. Nuclear waste. Where is it all going, Mycroft? What is she doing with it? She’s not just picking up nuclear waste off the shelf at Tesco, who are her partners? Who are her investors? _What is she doing?_ ” 

Mycroft was silent for several moments. “I don’t know,” he said finally, “But I **will** find out.”

* * * *

Mycroft disembarked from the helicopter and flashed his ID badge at the security guard. “I’m expecting my little brother and his guests,” he said over the noise of the helicopter engine.

“They’ve already gone in, sir,” the guard replied, “Though we’re… not really sure how they arrived.”

Mycroft paused and looked around then frowned and shook his head. “No cause for concern,” he said grimly, and headed into Sherrinford. 

John was waiting for him inside the second gate. “They’ve just gone down,” he said.

“She brought the damned car, didn’t she,” Mycroft said tightly as John led the way, “She’s left it cloaked but I could see its shadow.”

“So… did you know that it can…”

“She is a woman who has spent her entire life on the run and in fear for her life, Doctor Watson. That car can do a great deal more than just that.”

“That I don’t doubt,” John said. 

They stepped into the lift that would take them down to the Holmes keep. “I need to talk to Minerva,” Mycroft muttered as the lift descended, “I need to find out what the **hell** she’s **really** been up to.”

John flexed an eyebrow, “Bad?”

“I kept telling Sherlock, she is **dangerous!** ”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’, then.”

The lift doors slid open. Sherlock looked around and waited for them to join him, “She’s just gone in. Eurus hasn’t responded.”

Inside her enclosure, Eurus sat on her bed, facing the wall as always. Sherlock stepped back to join John and Mycroft, and watched. Minerva set some soft music playing on her phone, then stepped forward a few paces and waited. She waited until she saw some sign that Eurus’ attention had turned outward, then sang, “’You in the corner, come closer. I can see your face, I can see it in mine.’”

Eurus turned her head. Then she stood up and turned to face the glass. Her eyes widened and she took a step back. 

John glanced at Sherlock.

“’Oh you pretty thing, you,’” Minerva said suddenly, “’You’ve got an image problem. You need to think about your brand, how you want the world to see you. How you want Mr. World to see you.’” John’s eyes widened and he glanced up at Sherlock again. Eurus stared. 

Sherlock leaned towards Mycroft and whispered, “She’s talking?”

“That’s _American Gods,_ ” John said, “She’s quoting Media, that’s one of Media’s themes playing on her phone, the theme that played during that scene.”

Mycroft’s expression cleared, “I see. She must be using the music to support the quote, like rapping. How very interesting, she’s never done this before, to my knowledge.”

Eurus tilted her head and sneered. Minerva turned her face, lifting her eyebrows with a tranquil expression. She tilted her head to the side and curled her lip, raising her eyebrows scornfully, “’And you’re letting the old fuck get away with it.’”

Eurus’s eyes widened and she snarled.

“What? What ‘old fuck?’” John whispered. Sherlock shook his head, baffled and fascinated.

Minerva blinked slowly and lifted her chin and her eyebrows. Eurus stared at her, seeming to be at a loss. Minerva dipped her chin, her eyes narrowing, and shook her head slightly. Eurus stared at her, shocked. She looked bewildered, then shook her own head. 

Sherlock wasn’t sure Minerva had actually blinked yet. She tipped her face again, “’You’ve got your transmission and your live wire but your circuits are dead. He was fucking with you.’”

“’I told him not to fuck with me,’” Eurus snarled.

“’Take a look at you, beating up the wrong guy,’” Minerva was saying, “’You were a good kid, just not good with people you don’t know. Apologise.’”

Eurus stared and a muscle in her cheek twitched. “’Are you fucking with me right now?’”

“Now that’s interesting. Eurus knows the lines,” John commented. 

“’The web was suffocating. The spark was smouldering,’” Minerva continued, her expression still patient, “’Then you came along, putting out fire with gasoline. Now we have to pluck the fuse out of the fucker before the whole thing blows up in our faces. Apologise.’”

Eurus slammed against the glass, glaring. 

Minerva merely tipped her head, “’Hey little sister, what have you done? Hey little sister, who’s the other one?’” Eurus stepped back in shock. “’I’ve been away for so long, I’ve been away for so long, I’ve let you go for so long. It’s a nice day to start again. It’s a nice day for a black widow.’”

Eurus retreated to the middle of her enclosure. 

“’We’re all Holmes. All are one and one are all, all are one and one are all.’” Minerva sang as she turned away. “’Four is having problems adjusting to her Holmes status,’” she sang, “’Have to put her on the shelf.’”

“’Please don’t put me on the shelf,’” Eurus whispered. 

Minerva looked back. She lifted her chin, eyes narrowed, with an expression that Sherlock and John had seen many times, on Mycroft. 

Eurus looked away then slid her eyes back fiercely.

Minerva snorted with a smirk, tilting her face away. She tipped her face back with amused derision, then her face went curious. She lifted her eyebrows and tipped her face down with a little smile.

Eurus looked doubtful.

Minerva’s face turned slightly mocking, then shifted into a scornful sneer. Eurus looked incendiary and she snarled, looking like she was about to throw herself at the glass. 

Minerva only smirked. Then her expression turned detached and speculative.

Eurus squinted, looking uncertain.

Minerva lifted her eyebrows and her chin in another way that was so, so familiar, and Eurus tilted her head, puzzled.

And startled when Minerva sang, “’Now listen to me!’” She approached the glass, her expression terse, “’They’ve destroyed the governments! They’re destroying time! Lots more problems on the way. They’re through with Mycroft! They won’t need **your** kind - the other ones, ugly ones, stupid girls, wrong ones. ‘You’re all alone’, so are we all! We’re all Holmes - all are one and one are all, all are one and one are all.’”

Eurus stepped back, surprised, and Minerva took another step forward. Her eyes narrowed. Eurus frowned and jerked her chin a little to one side. 

Minerva sighed and closed her eyes in fleeting impatience. 

Eurus looked slightly disconcerted. Minerva’s eyes narrowed and Eurus stared back. Finally Minerva nodded and Eurus shrugged. Minerva tipped her head again, knitting her brows and Eurus frowned, then lifted her brows and shrugged again. Minerva tipped her head to the other side and Eurus shook her head, looking puzzled. 

Minerva’s face lit up with realisation and she smiled. Then she lifted a sceptical eyebrow and Eurus… balked. 

Minutes ticked past. The music on Minerva’s phone continued to loop. Eurus stared at the floor in silence. Minerva waited, her eyes distant, focusing on some inner world. 

Finally Eurus stepped towards Sherlock. He went to her and she pressed against the glass. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “It appears I’ve made some wrong choices.”

Sherlock glanced back at John, shocked. “I… really can’t disagree with that conclusion,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. 

Sherlock stared at her, swamped by the memories of what she’d done to John, to Mycroft, to Molly, to him. “I… accept your apology, but,” he took a deep breath, “Forgiveness… that will take much longer. That has to be earned.”

She nodded, then after a moment, looked up at him. He stared at her, shocked by her expression. “I don’t know what this is,” she whispered, “What I’m feeling. What is it? It’s cold and it’s gnawing and it’s flaying me apart inside.”

Sherlock stared at her and realised she was trembling. “Fear,” he said finally, “You’re… afraid? Of what? Of.. Of her?”

_”Who is she?”_

“Minerva? She’s… She’s our big sister.” Eurus’s eyes grew huge with horror. “We never knew about her, we never met her. She spent her life in an institution, the same as you.” Eurus stared at him then fell away from the glass and turned again towards Minerva. Sherlock stepped back to John’s side. 

Minerva tipped her head again, “’All right, little sister, You’re a bit shaken, but you’re looking good. Inside, you got beat up, and your pride took a bit of flak.’”

“What was that, then?” John whispered.

“Eurus apologized.”

“She what?!”

“And she’s afraid of Minerva.”

John stared at him, “You said Mrs. Hudson was scared of her, too. And Greg. Mycroft certainly is. But we’re not. What are they all seeing in her that we’re not?”

“I think we do see it,” Sherlock whispered, “We’re just not scared.”

Minerva lifted her head to stare at Eurus, “’Oh, you want a second chance? You got it!’”


	9. Kryptonite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few pieces of the puzzle come together, leading Sherlock to a few realizations. But then the bad guys make their move.

The canteen at Sherrinford had frankly abominable tea. Mycroft made a face as well as a mental note to address that. John passed out the remaining cups then sat down and they waited for Minerva to finish doctoring her tea. “Obviously you got something out of that,” Mycroft said, “Your face just lit up like fireworks for a moment there.

Minerva nodded and lifted her hands, ‘She learned about Moriarty through Smith. However, she knew Smith because he had been on the board of directors of the institution she’d been in.’

Sherlock and Mycroft looked at each other. Mycroft frowned, “How did you figure that out? She never said that.”

Minerva shrugged, ‘She did. You weren’t paying attention.’

Sherlock leaned back and steepled his fingers against his lips. “She got to know Smith through the institution, then she’s known Smith for some time. Smith told her about Moriarty, with whom he had connections, the nature of which are still uncertain but easy to speculate upon. Smith knew about Minerva’s inventions but apparently didn’t know who she was or that she was our sister.”

Mycroft huffed, “How does any of this help Minerva?” 

“I don’t know yet,” Sherlock said, “What I’d like to know now is, how does Uncle Rudy fit into this?”

Mycroft gaped at him incredulously, “ _Uncle Rudy?_ ”

“People like Eurus don’t emerge from the forehead of Zeus,” John said quietly, “I brought it up to Sherlock, to find he was on the same page.”

“People like her are born with particular features of the brain, it’s true,” Sherlock added, “But that isn’t all there is to it. There’s an environmental element, an element of nurture. Something that teaches the child that human lives have no value. It’s almost always some form of dehumanising abuse. They learn from that example.”

John nodded slowly, “And since that abuse didn’t come from your home, it must have come from another source, someone who had easy access.”

“It was just speculation, but then you confirmed that it was Uncle Rudy who had placed Minerva into his institution. After that, I called Greg. He’s doing some investigations.”

Mycroft stared at him, “What do you expect to find?”

“You’ve never really investigated Uncle Rudy, have you?”

“No. Why would I?”

“He sent two little girls off to institutions that he worked for, that’s never bothered you?”

“Uncle Rudy was highly respected in his field,” Mycroft said automatically then paused, “It’s bothering you.”

Sherlock nodded, “I’ve made some inquiries. Some patterns are beginning to emerge but I’d like to have more information before I draw conclusions. But Culverton Smith being on the board of directors, that’s an uncomfortable coincidence.”

The silence that followed was equally uncomfortable. Mycroft gazed at Minerva, dismayed. She gazed back steadily and he looked away slowly. “It seems our parents aren’t the only naive ones.”

“You’re high level. Sherlock’s in the weeds,” John said gently, “He’s learned when to start asking questions. Do you two need a moment?”

Mycroft glanced at Minerva. He nodded and she reached to cover his hand. 

“I’ll go visit Eurus, see how she’s doing,” Sherlock said, getting up. 

John nodded, “I’ll just go and… fend off onlookers, I guess.”

* * * *

Eurus was back in her seat, facing the wall again, when Sherlock returned. She looked around almost immediately and got up to approach the glass. He gazed at her with some sympathy — what she’d become, she’d been born primed for that path, but someone else had given her a push. 

She gazed back at him, visibly agitated, and pressed her hand against the glass. Sherlock mirrored the gesture. He took out his phone with his free hand and thumbed up some of the music he’d been contemplating. He hadn’t brought his violin this time but this might do the trick. He pressed play and watched as her expression cleared and slowly calmed. 

_”Once I made you laugh all night. I thought you would burst. Turns out I got it wrong. Apparently you were screaming.”_ Like so many of her kind, Eurus simply didn’t understand fear. And like so many of her kind, she didn’t feel it. _Yet she was afraid, truly afraid, of Minerva. Why?_ Eurus had turned her head and rested it against the glass. Her face had returned to her usual blank expression. _Somehow, you told her about Smith’s connection to Uncle Rudy. Or did she make that up? I don’t think she did but it wasn’t anywhere in the lines you were speaking._ He sighed quietly. _I wonder what might have happened if she’d grown up with us, as our big sister?_

“What does ‘black widow’ mean?”

Sherlock startled slightly at the whisper, then frowned. “Yes, that isn’t how the song goes, is it? It goes _’It’s a nice day for a white wedding’_ but she sang it as _’It’s a nice day for a black widow.’_ ” He thumbed up his phone’s browser and tapped the keyboard. “Oh…!” Because amid all the spider pictures was something that made him pause. “Let’s have a look.”

They watched the video clips in silence. Eurus looked intrigued but Sherlock was frowning. 

_”It’s a nice day to start again… It’s a nice day for a black widow.”_

_”Take a look at you, beating up the wrong guy. Apologise.”_

_”Oh you want a second chance? You’ve got it.”_

_”They’re through with **Mycroft**! They won’t need **your** kind.”_

_”Minerva is **dangerous!** ”_

_Oh…_

_…SHIT._

And startled when the air turned orange and a klaxon began to scream. “Is that the break-out alarm?” Sherlock walked back to the guard station, “What’s going on?”

“Active assailant shelter in place,” the guard replied, shaking his head, “External penetration.”

“What?” Sherlock looked up the hall, “Someone’s breaking **in**?”

“People try to, sometimes.”

“I know, I did it once,” Sherlock said, “But why would they.. They must have found out she was here!”

“Who’s here, sir? Eurus Holmes, sir? Sir?” But Sherlock had taken off running and the lift doors closed behind him. 

And opened on chaos. Glass lay on the floor and balcony in a pattern indicating that a body had been thrown through it. Voices were yelling, footsteps pounding towards the hangar bay. Gunfire, shouting. There was no sign of John. 

A hand grabbed his arm and hauled him back into an alcove near a window. “Where’s John?” he hissed. 

“Through the balcony door,” Mycroft whispered, “Minerva went through after him and shouted something but I couldn’t hear what.”

Sherlock stared at him, “Are you telling me John’s dead?”

Mycroft shook his head, “Ordinarily maybe, but it’s Minerva. She left me her umbrella. Called it ‘Kingsman.’”

Sherlock flexed an eyebrow, “Then it’s almost certainly a bullet-proof shield and packing a lot more than just a pistol in the grip.”

“What?”

“You’ve never seen _Kingsman_ , have you? John’s fond of it. Where is Minerva now?”

“She went down. Trying to get to Kehaar, I believe.”

“So they’re here for her? They knew she was here?”

“Definitely. What the blazes is that noise?”

The fighting had moved away enough that they could peer cautiously out of the window. Sherlock’s mouth dropped open. “Is that… _Iron Man_??”

Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose, “Minerva…”

“No, wait, see, his legs are too long for the suit! Those are John’s shoes, that’s John! She gave John an Iron Man suit? Oh he’s never going to shut up about it…”

“Sherlock, do you see Minerva?”

“Not yet, there’s a lot of oh! The car just appeared, she must have de-cloaked it. I think she’s going to ram them!”

“Come on!”

They ran for the hanger bay doors, arriving in time to see John’s shot take a marksman through the thigh. Minerva urged her car forward and Sherlock ran out to knock another man’s weapon from his hand and punch him senseless across the jaw. Tyres squealed and he turned to see the car revving, then launching forth at speed. Two of the assailants turned their guns on it, spraying it with bullets as it plowed into their rank. Red sprayed the inside of the windshield and the driver slumped forward over the steering wheel. The car plunged over the edge of the hangar cliff and into the sea below. It slid under the surface and then the waves obscured even the bubbles. 

Then there was nothing but the sound of the waves. 

“Sherlock…?” Sherlock turned to see John setting down beside him. He pushed up the Iron Man mask and his face was compassionate, “Sherlock, I’m sorry.”

“Collect the rest of these,” Mycroft was saying to the guard captain, “They will be questioned.” He turned to Sherlock and John, “Our helicopter will be here shortly.”

“Mycroft…”

“We will discuss this later.”

* * * *

The ride back to Baker Street was silent. John carried the Iron Man suit, which had folded itself into Minerva’s briefcase. “Mycroft… I’m sorry for your loss.”

Mycroft made a sound that was suspiciously like a chuckle, though his face was unamused. The car pulled up to kerb and they got out. Mycroft waited until it was gone before he went around the back to the house’s driveway. Mrs. Hudson’s Aston Martin was in the garage and the driveway was empty, yet.. not. He shook his head and tsked, “She really has to do something about that. It’s no use having an invisible car that casts a shadow. Really, the only thing that’s kept it working is people are so unobservant. Access Rabscuttle.” 

“Access Rabscuttle, acknowledged. Welcome back, Navarre.” The car door popped open, revealing the undamaged interior.

“Thank you, Kehaar. It’s good to see you again.”

“Wait.. What?”

“Oh!” Sherlock gasped, “Of course! John, what did we see when the car first came up to Baker Street?”

“Oh, right! It had a holographic driver!”

“Exactly,” Mycroft smiled, “This is how she escaped the Russian attempt. The car is made of the same bullet-proof alloy as her bracelets.”

“’Here in my car, I feel safest of all,’” Sherlock remembered, “But it sank into the ocean, how did it get back here?”

“Really, Sherlock. The car flies. Is it really a surprise that it should swim as well?”

“It’s amphibious!”

“It was inspired by the Drakster, which is a very obscure reference,” Mycroft said. “Kehaar, where is your mistress?”

“Isabeau has gone to get a cup of tea at Speedy’s.”

“’Navarre?’ ‘Isabeau?’” John whispered to Sherlock, “I guess they were fans of _Ladyhawke_ as well as _Watership Down._ ”

“Indeed,” Sherlock smiled back, “And Rabscuttle was El-Ahrairah’s accomplice.”

Mycroft got out of the car and they walked back around to the street side and entered the diner. Minerva sat in a booth near the back. She stood up and Mycroft went to embrace his sister then sat beside her. Sherlock and John sat opposite them. “You gave Sherlock and John quite a scare,” Mycroft told her gently.

‘Sorry,’ she signed and looked at John, ‘Are you alright?’

“Yes, fine. A bit surprised, that’s all,” John chuckled.

“John, what happened?”

John looked at Sherlock, abruptly remembering that Sherlock had been down visiting with Eurus at the time. “They burst in and shot the guards. I went to engage them, they blew a hole in the balcony door and threw me out. I was falling. I heard Minerva scream and the next thing I knew, there was this mecha suit attaching itself to me and asking for my access code as if I wasn’t plunging down a bloody cliff towards the ocean. Gave me a bit of a turn.”

“You got the hang of it pretty quickly.”

“Well, I had to, didn’t I?” John grinned at Minerva, “The tasers on that are beautiful.”

“You should have gone inside,” Mycroft chided her gently, “I gave you my key.” 

She shook her head and sang, “’I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind.’” 

He nodded understanding. He leaned out of the way as the server brought Minerva her pie and refilled her tea. Mycroft gave the pie an envious stare and Minerva offered him a second fork. He looked reluctant and she nudged him with her elbow with a little smile. 

“Oh for God’s sake, Mycroft, just take a bite of the pie, it’s not going to kill you,” Sherlock huffed. 

“Although it just might, given the day we’re having,” John said. Sherlock hummed, conceding the point.

“We need to talk,” Mycroft said. 

“’I brace myself for the worst, whenever I hear those words,’” Minerva sighed. They shared the pie in silence as the diner’s radio started a new song by KISS. Then they started to grin, glancing at each other. Then they burst into, “I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU, BABY, YOU WERE MADE FOR LOVING MEEEEE!” and fell about laughing as though it was the funniest joke in the universe. Sherlock and John glanced at each other and grinned. 

“Alright, I know an in-joke when I see one and I’d love to know what’s behind it,” John said. 

“You have to understand, we were just children when that song came out,” Mycroft explained, “We didn’t understand the context. We have always felt strongly that we belong together and as I said earlier, John, you correctly identified the level of intimacy between us…”

John nodded, “So the grown-ups were afraid you were incestuous and they panicked.” Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose.

“There really aren’t any songs about filial attachment,” Mycroft said, “But we were old enough to recognise the effect we were having on the adults annnnd old enough to… be a bit rebellious… Mischievous…”

“You sang it at every opportunity,” John said. Sherlock’s shoulders were starting to shake. 

“Pretty much.”

“I love both of you right now,” John glanced at Sherlock, whose grin was escaping. 

“As long as they don’t start playing the _Africa_ game,” Sherlock mock-huffed. “Did you ever hear mondogreens?”

“Oh yes, all the time,” Mycroft said, “Mondogreens were how we figured out that we could substitute words in the lyrics to make them better fit our meaning.”

“Ah!” Sherlock nodded and glanced at their plate, “If you’re ready, we should go upstairs. We really do need to discuss this.”

After settling up, they went out to the door of 221 and Sherlock paused.

“Sherlock?”

“Something’s wrong. Be ready, John.” Sherlock cautiously opened the door. Immediately he saw that the door of Mrs. Hudson’s suite was ajar. “Mrs. Hudson? Mrs. Hudson! John, she’s hurt.”

“Get my kit,” John ordered, then sucked in his breath, “Oh fuck… Where’s Rosie? I left her with Mrs. Hudson!”

“I’ll find her,” Sherlock said, “Mycroft, you know where John’s kit is.”

“I do,” Mycroft said. He returned a few minutes later with John’s first aid kit and a grim expression. He caught Sherlock’s eye and shook his head minutely. 

“Where is Rosie,” John’s voice was clipped. 

“Not in the flat,” Sherlock admitted, and watched John’s face turn dark.

“They took her?” Mrs. Hudson’s voice was slurring and she started to cry, “I knew that’s what they wanted. I tried to fight them…”

“How many, Mrs. Hudson?”

“There were two at the door but I think they let a third one in.” 

“So they drugged Mrs. Hudson and kidnapped Rosie,” John said flatly.

“This is why Minerva is dangerous,” Mycroft said sadly, “The danger is to those around her. That’s why she drove off into the sea, to stop the attack.”

“I **know** that, Mycroft,” Sherlock said, and held his brother’s gaze until Mycroft had to look away. “I **know** why. And **I** tore through Moriarty’s network **and** I destroyed Magnussen, and now these people have stolen our daughter and assaulted my landlady and I **will** find out who they are and I **will** tear through them as well. And you’re selling your twin sister short.” The silence drew out. “John, can Mrs. Hudson manage?”

“It doesn’t look like she’s suffered any head or spine injuries and the drug is wearing off. I don’t want to leave her alone, though.”

“Just take me ‘round to Mrs. Turner’s, dear,” Mrs. Hudson said, “She can dial 999 as well as anyone can.”

“Alright,” John said and helped her to her feet. She was unsteady but improving. “I’ll be back, yeah? And Sherlock…”

“I know, John.”

The Holmes siblings climbed the seventeen steps and filed into 221B’s sitting room. Sherlock’s email alert chimed and he looked down at his phone. 

“Those were Lady Smallwood’s men,” Mycroft said without preamble, “Before I arrived at Sherrinford, I was summoned to consultation with Lady Smallwood. She revealed that a Georgian spy had taken the identity of Minerva Holmes.” Minerva froze. Sherlock frowned at his phone and got up to fetch his laptop. “Curiosity led Lady Smallwood to do some digging. She knows now that you’re my sister. She knows that you’re Project Eleven. And she knows what you’ve been dealing in lately.”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock interrupted him and turned his laptop screen, “Take a look at this.” He pressed play.

The video showed a figure bound to a chair. Female, her head lolled to one side, dark hair falling over her face, her white clothes stained with bloody streaks. The camera zoomed onto the woman’s face, then abruptly swung to the face of an unknown man. “Good evening, Mr. Holmes,” the man said, “As you can see, we have your twin sister. Instructions will be forthcoming so do be patient. Until then, we’re going to have a _lot_ of fun! Cheerio!” The video ended. 

“Whoever they are, they’re stupid,” Mycroft said, “Eurus isn’t your twin sister.”

Sherlock paused, “Unless they’ve got the wrong Mr. Holmes.”

“And the wrong sister,” Mycroft agreed. They stared at each other, **_”They’ve got the wrong sister!”_**


	10. Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft’s voice started to tighten as he thumbed document after document onto his phone’s display, “I already knew you were trading large amounts in Bitcoin, but where does the carbon come in? The plasma generators? The _nuclear waste material?_ For God’s sake, Minerva, **_what are you playing at?_** ”
> 
> Minerva gazed steadily back, “’Power, force, motion, drive. Power, force, motion, drive.’”

“They’ve got the wrong sister!”

“Good Lord, there won’t be enough left to interrogate!”

“Sorry?” John said as he closed the door behind him, “What’s going on?”

“They’ve taken Eurus as well,” Sherlock said, “They sent a video. ‘Instructions will follow,’ they said. Then they threatened her, saying they were going to ‘have some fun.’”

“Eurus,” John repeated, “Well someone’s going to have fun but it won’t be them.”

“Exactly, we’d do better to take bets on whether we find any survivors.”

“They apparently believe they’ve taken Minerva,” Mycroft said darkly, as Sherlock played the video again. 

John frowned, “So.. How’d they know Minerva was at Sherrinford?”

“Lady Smallwood. She knows who Minerva is now. She knows she’s Project Eleven, a highly dangerous threat to the stability of the nation.” Minerva blinked innocently. Mycroft’s voice started to tighten as he thumbed document after document onto his phone’s display, “I already knew you were trading large amounts in Bitcoin, but where does the carbon come in? The plasma generators? The _nuclear waste material?_ For God’s sake, Minerva, **_what are you playing at?_** ”

Minerva gazed steadily back, “’Power, force, motion, drive. Power, force, motion, drive.’”

John looked thoughtful. He went into the loo and came back holding a small object. “I’m betting it’s got something to do with this,” he said, and set the object down onto the coffee table. “We thought they were tampons but that’s what she wants us to think, ennit? She was a bit nervous about losing track of them but that’s not unusual, women don’t like to be taken by surprise by their periods. Sherlock put them in the loo for her, I moved them when I needed to fix the toilet flapper and I noticed they were rather heavy for tampons.”

“ **That’s** what it was!” Sherlock said, “I thought something was a bit off about them but I couldn’t place what it was. It was the weight!”

John nodded, “You don’t have much experience of women in this area and Mrs. Hudson is well past the age, so I’m not surprised you didn’t pick up on it. But then I remembered she’d had her Bitcoin paper hidden in a sanitary towel wrapper. I’m willing to bet that whatever’s inside that wrapper isn’t a tampon.”

“Easily answered, then,” Mycroft said. He picked up the object and peeled off the wrapping. And held up a greyish cylinder with a dull sheen. It was slightly warm. “Is that… diamond?”

Minerva was smiling.

Sherlock lifted his head, “When we were at Greg’s forge, she took something out of her shoe and put them into the bracers. They made a hum and then they could generate shock waves.”

John said, “I remember reading something about scientists finding a way to encase nuclear waste in diamond but the power they got from it was minimal, it wasn’t enough to do much of anything.” 

“You’ve found a way to make it work,” Mycroft breathed. 

Minerva nodded, “’Oh diamond sun has to burn.’”

“The ones you put in your bracers are small but they could generate that much concussive force,” Sherlock said. 

Mycroft sucked in his breath, “Is Kehaar running on these?” Minerva nodded.

“I take it these don’t have the distance limitation of most electric vehicles,” Sherlock said, “How long is the battery life?”

“’Five years, what a surprise.’ ‘Still going strong, he’s still going strong.’”

John glanced at Sherlock, “On… just… one of these?” She held up a hand. “Five. It takes five of these to power that… super-car. For five-plus years.”

“What else can these power?” Sherlock asked slowly. 

Minerva smiled, “’All the things, she said, she said.’”

“Homes, heaters, lights…”

“’Fifty thousand watts of power, and we’re pushing overload.’”

“Fif…” John and Sherlock stared at each other, “Fifty kilowatts is the size of an average wind turbine. One of **these** can produce that much… oh a bigger one. Oh, that’s not **much** bigger!”

“My God, Minerva,” Mycroft breathed, “If this gets out, it could turn the energy industry on its ear!”

“I think it **has** gotten out,” Sherlock said, “And that’s what brought her here in the first place.” He turned to her, “But what I want to know is, black widow - did you know they were going to take Eurus?”

Everyone fell silent and stared at him. Minerva looked a little sheepish and lifted her hands, ‘Not so soon. I wasn’t finished with her yet.’

“ _What?!_ ”

“I told you, Mycroft - you’ve been selling your twin sister short,” Sherlock said quietly, “I realized it when I was down with Eurus, before the attack. This is part of a plan - **her** plan, a **Holmes** plan. You said she doesn’t sell her toys yet she’s made millions off of her odourant spray. To keep up with that kind of production, she must have a factory. We were all so caught up in her wonderful toys, we never stopped to ask how they were powered. Now we know. What else could her factory be making? Nuclear diamond batteries capable of powering six homes yet small enough to store in the basement, batteries the size of tampons capable of powering a car for years. But that’s not all, is it? It’s even bigger than that.”

“The scale of these manhunt operations would indicate so,” Mycroft said tightly. 

“So why would they employ idiots?” Sherlock mused, “They sent this to me thinking **I** was the twin. Did they think I’m you or you’re me?”

John cleared his throat, “Either way, they’ve taken your sister to target Mycroft. That’s something else Minerva said when we were visiting Eurus - ‘They’re through with Mycroft.’”

Mycroft shot him a look. “Yes,” he said slowly, “This new government… There have been… many changes. Many of us - myself, Lady Smallwood, and a few others, have been contemplating… going freelance.”

Sherlock nodded slowly, “This changes our approach. Minerva’s not the only target; you are, as well.” He went to his case wall and started rearranging the pictures and threads. He contemplated the new arrangement for some time. He turned to Minerva, “’They’re driving by your house, they don’t know you’re not home.’” Mycroft stared at him. “There’s a plot against Mycroft and you knew about it. You came here to find out who’s behind it all because now they’re actively threatening Mycroft.” He turned to Mycroft, “You said they were Lady Smallwood’s men but even if they might mistake Eurus for Minerva, her people wouldn’t be stupid enough to mistake me for you.”

“Certainly not,” Mycroft agreed, “Someone on her team must be a double-agent and an informer. They must have heard her talking to me about my twin sister and known that I had gone straight to Sherrinford, then informed someone who thought that ‘Mr. Holmes’ must refer to you.”

“Either that or her office is bugged,” Sherlock nodded. 

* * * *

The elephant.

_The first time she saw the elephant, it had been Culverton’s idea to find her. She had brilliant ideas, he’d said. She had lucrative inventions, he’d said. She’s a genius, like you, he’d said. You’d like her, he’d said._

_You’d like her._

_And then she’d met the elephant._

_They’d approached her and tried to talk to her. Culverton had tried to entice her. Then she’d tried to convince her._

_But the Elephant never looked up. Never looked up from what she was working on. Never said a word. Never acknowledged them. Never gave any indication that she’d heard anything at all._

_So she had tried her talking trick. And that was a mistake._

_Because the Elephant noticed._

_Never looking up from what she was doing, the Elephant sang._

_”’Who are you? What are you waiting for? This is not a race. Are you trying to steal time?’”_

_And she’d shivered._

_And she’d felt… something._

_And for the first time, she questioned what she was doing._

_But then she turned away, and Culverton reminded her, and the memories came back, and so she turned away._

_And hoped never to see The Elephant again._

_But_

_Sherlock had come to visit._

_”’You in the corner, come closer. I can see your face, I can see it in mine.’”_

_She knew that voice. She knew that voice. She knew that tune. The Elephant. She stared at her and felt… something._

_“Oh you pretty thing you,” The Elephant had said, “You have an image problem. You want to think about your brand. How you want the world to see you. How you want Mr. World to see you.”_

_And she’d tilted her head with a sneer and answered, “’Mr. World’ sees me as something to be used.”_

_“As do you. We’re all used,” The Elephant had replied tranquilly, turning her face, “Even Mr. World. But in resisting Mr. World, you’ve let yourself be used by others.” The Elephant tilted her head to the side and curled her lip, raising her eyebrows scornfully, “And you’re letting the old fuck get away with it.”_

_Her eyes had widened and she’d snarled. “What do you know about it? Do you know what he did to me?”_

_And The Elephant blinked slowly and lifted her chin and her eyebrows, “Of course. He did the same to me.”_

_She didn’t know what to say._

_For the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to say._

_“You weren’t the first,” The Elephant dipped her chin and shook her head slightly, “And you weren’t the only one.”_

_She didn’t know what to say. She shook her head._

_The Elephant tipped her face again, unblinking, “You’ve got your transmission and your live wire but your circuits are dead. He was fucking with you.”_

_“I told him not to fuck with me,” she’d snarled._

_“Take a look at you, beating up the wrong guy,” The Elephant was saying, “You were a good kid, just not good with people you don’t know. Apologise.”_

_She’d stared and a muscle in her cheek twitched. “Are you fucking with me right now?”_

_“The web was suffocating. The spark was smouldering,” The Elephant continued, her expression still patient, “Then you came along, putting out fire with gasoline. Now we have to pluck the fuse out of the fucker before the whole thing blows up in our faces. Apologise.”_

_She’d slammed against the glass, glaring, “Who the fuck do you think you are?!”_

_The Elephant merely tipped her head, “’Hey little sister, what have you done? Hey little sister, who’s the other one?’” She’d stepped back in shock. “’I’ve been away for so long, I’ve been away for so long, I’ve let you go for so long. It’s a nice day to start again. It’s a nice day for a black widow.’”_

She had a sister. She’d had a sister all along. Sherlock confirmed it. She’d had a sister all along and her sister was The Elephant and The Elephant knew, she knew, she knew because he’d done the same thing to her.

_”’Please don’t put me on the shelf,’” she’d whispered, and the Elephant looked back._

_The Elephant lifted her chin, eyes narrowed, with an expression she’d seen on one other. “You went to the Irishman. Why?”_

_She’d looked away then slid her eyes back fiercely. “Because I hated them so much. He put me in here and used me.”_

_The Elephant had snorted with a smirk, tilting her face away. “’There’s a terror in knowing what Mr. World is about,’” she’d said. She tipped her face back with amused derision, “We’re **all** being used, and him most of all.” She tipped her face, curious, “You really don’t understand, do you?” She lifted her eyebrows and tipped her face down with a little smile, “He was offering you an outlet for your intellect. He was hoping you would find satisfaction in it. There is a place in his world for people like you, with your skills and talents.”_

_She’d doubted, then._

_The Elephant’s face turned slightly mocking, “Now you’re the perfect predator - just like **him,** and so very used to being used.”_

_And she’d felt real fury then, just at the mere **thought** of being compared to **him.** “You fucking **dare?!** ”_

_”And you’re letting the old fuck get away with it,” The Elephant smirked. Then her face went detached, speculative, “You thought you could use the Irishman. But you didn’t use the Irishman; the Irishman used you.”_

_She’d squinted, not sure where this was going, “What of it?”_

_”You’ve left yourself open,”_ the Elephant said, lifting her eyebrows and her chin in the way that was so, so familiar, _”Now you’re a liability.”_

_She’d tilted her head, puzzled, “What do you mean?”_

_The Elephant had approached the glass, her expression terse, “’They’ve destroyed the governments! They’re destroying time! Lots more problems on the way. They’re through with Mycroft! They won’t need **your** kind - the other ones, ugly ones, stupid girls, wrong ones.’” She’d taken a step back, surprised, and The Elephant took another step forward. Her eyes narrowed, “Why did you come to me?”_

_”You came here.”_

_The Elephant closed her eyes in fleeting impatience, “A few years ago, try to keep up. Why? What were you **really** after?”_

_”Smith said you made powerful weapons. He wanted to broker a deal.”_

_The Elephant’s eyes narrowed, “On behalf of whom?”_

_She’d stared back, “I don’t know. One of his friends.”_

_”With connections to the Irishman,” The Elephant nodded._

_She’d shrugged, “Probably.”_

_The Elephant knitted her brows and tipped her head curiously, ”How did you know about the Irishman?”_

_She’d frowned a moment then lifted her brows and shrugged, “Smith told me. He showed me the blogs and the news articles.”_

_The Elephant tipped her head to the other side, “So you’ve known Smith for longer than you knew the Irishman. How did you come to know about Smith?”_

_She’d shook her head again, not sure where this was going, “He was a stakeholder in the second institution that Uncle Rudy had put me into. He became a member of their board of directors.”_

_And The Elephant’s face lit up and she smiled._

_”So why **you?** ” The Elephant said, “Why did **you** come?”_

_And she’d stared at the floor, “He said you were a genius.”_

And she was, oh she was. And she was right, oh so very right. She’d left herself open. She’d made a mistake. 

She’d never made a mistake before. It was quite a novel feeling. She wasn’t quite sure she liked it. 

There was a package on the table. It was important somehow. When her head quit throbbing, she’d probably figure out how. 

A hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head up. _Ow. That hurts._ “So this is her, is it?” a male voice sneered, “Doesn’t look like much.”

“You sure we got the right one?”

“Boss said we’d find her at Sherrinford, there she was at Sherrinford, name tag and everything. Besides, who else it gonna be?”

“I dunno, I just thought, the way the boss was talking, I thought she’d be older, is all.” _Wait, what?_

“Ah, all the creams and Botoxes they’re using these days, who knows.”

_They think I’m the Elephant. …come on come on wake up get it together… they think you’re the Elephant and the Elephant knew it… The Elephant knew it. Black widow. Come on, shake it off, get it in gear. They’re after the Elephant, they think you’re the Elephant, and the Elephant knew it and set you up for it._

“Skype’s up. Go ahead, boss. She’s awake but I’m not sure how out of it she is.”

“If she’s not, you can make her pay attention. So, you’re this Miss Holmes they’ve been hunting all these years. You don’t look like much, do you?” 

_Why do they always say that? Really, why do they always say that? You could set your watch by it._ “What do you want with me?”

“Bobby, make her look at me.” Her head was jerked back painfully, forcing her to look at the smiling man on the laptop screen. “Are you comfortable? I do hope you’re comfortable, because you’re going to be our guest for quite a while.”

“Why? What do you want?”

“Oh you have **so** much to offer,” the man on the screen purred. He was a little older than her but not as old as Mycroft, she decided. “The Diamond Sun technology is, of course, only the latest on our list of priorities.”

She let her head loll and looked puzzled. “What?” she slurred.

“But I understand you have a long history of creativity, but marketing. Daddy’s been wanting to amend that for such a very long time.”

She rolled her head to the other side and slurred, “Why d’you look like Jimmy?” 

The man on the screen blinked, momentarily confused, “What?”

“Ohhhhhhh,” she said, lifting her head a little, “You must be Jimmy’s brother, the one who’s a station master.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“Whassyer name, the one who wasn’t good enough…”

“The hell?? Do you realize who you’re dealing with?!”

_Perfect._ “You’re Jimmy’s older brother. You were jealous of Jimmy because he was better than you. He got all the rewards. Now Jimmy’s dead and you’re trying to prove you’re good enough.” She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye and nodded, “I can help you be good enough.”


	13. Diamond Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Smallwood gets the answers to her questions, Mycroft has a problem, and John can't keep lying to himself.

Sherlock stared at the evidence wall. He’d rearranged the pictures again and re-run the threads between them. Now he sat in his chair, fingers tented against his chin, staring at the wall as though gaze alone could force it to reveal its secrets. 

John paced back and forth, waiting for the kettle. It boiled and he poured the water into the teapot. Mycroft and Minerva had taken their argument outside the flat but the walls were thin and he could still hear their voices.

“’Well you’ve gotta be crazy, baby,’ if you think a plan like this is going to work!”

John shook his head, “Well that didn’t scan.”

“Hmm, no it didn’t, did it,” Sherlock murmured. 

“’Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insane,’” Amazing how Minerva managed to make her sneer audible. “’But you know I love the players, and you _love_ the game!’”

“She’s got him pegged,” John chuckled. He glanced up at a huff from the sitting room to see Sherlock’s half-smile. He poured the tea and set a cup down next to Sherlock, then nerved himself, staring fixedly at Sherlock’s throat, “ _Our_ daughter, you said.” And watched as the pulse there abruptly tripled. “Is that how you think of her? ‘Our’ daughter?” Sherlock’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment and he swallowed. “And how do you think of **me**?” Sherlock turned pale then red and looked away. John watched him carefully. “I guess we’ve both been lying to ourselves,” John sighed and patted Sherlock’s shoulder. 

“’With a little luck, we can help it out. We can make this whole damn thing work out. There is no end to what we can do together.’”

“’You burn and burn to get under my skin, you've gone too far now I won't give in.’”

John shook his head, amused, “Garbage? Didn’t think Mycroft even knew that band.”

“’You can go your own way, go your own way.’”

“Whatever she’s trying to sell him, he’s not having it,” Sherlock agreed. 

“’You say I’m a dreamer,” Minerva sang, “’We’re two of a kind. We’re both of us searching for some perfect world we know we’ll never find.’”

“’You’ve come to tear our little world apart. And just around the corner is the English civil war.’”

“Garbage and The Clash,” John shook his head again, “Boy, I’m learning a lot about Mycroft’s taste in music.”

“He said it’s the lyric that matters, not the song.”

“’This is the world we live in and these are the hands we're given. Use them and let's start trying to make it a place worth living in.’”

“’You’ll burn the flag, burn the house, burn the church, burn it all down…’”

“’We didn’t start the fire. Though we didn’t light it but we’re trying to fight it.’”

“’Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are, fighting fire with fire.’”

“’We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn? Burn, motherfucker, burn!’”

John shook his head again, chuckling, “That is some advanced level arguing. Can you understand any of it?” Sherlock was still staring at his case wall. He got up and started rearranging the threads and pictures again. “Apparently so?”

“Not all of it, no,” Sherlock said, going to his laptop to print off some more pictures, “But it’s big. She said ‘ **we** didn’t light it but **we’re** trying to fight it.’”

“Isn’t that just how the song goes?”

Sherlock shook his head, “We saw before with ‘manager mister’, sometimes she means all the words in a lyric. She’s not alone in this, it’s big, it’s a threat to national security and the energy sector. And she’s trying to get Mycroft to buy in.”

“She’s recruiting,” John realized, “Is that why she wanted to talk to Eurus?”

Sherlock sucked in his breath, “She said she wasn’t finished with her yet.”

“Oh my God…!”

“Minerva doesn’t talk and Eurus talks too well.”

“Oh Jesus Christ, Sherlock! What the hell have we gotten into?”

Sherlock stepped back from the wall and stared at the patterns. He sighed and raked his hands through his hair, “I don’t know. I don’t know, John.” He shook his head and went to stare out the window. And frowned. “Mycroft, your ride is here.”

The door opened and Mycroft rushed in. “I summoned no one,” he said, holding up his phone, “But I’ve just got a text. ‘El-Ahrairah.’” Mycroft eased to the window and peered out, then looked at Minerva, “’Black cars look better in the shade.’”

Minerva held up her phone, showing the same text from the same number, “’I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon. After all I knew it had to be something to do with you.’”

“They’re coming up,” Sherlock said, “I don’t think you should go with them alone.”

Mycroft smiled as Minerva took his arm, “I won’t be.”

* * * * 

The Diogenes Club. 

Possibly the last location Mycroft had expected to be taken to. At this hour, it was pretty much deserted but a few lights flickered in the back rooms. Mycroft pulled his calm around himself like a shield and walked towards them. 

The people in the hall were watching him expectantly. His assistant looked up from her Blackberry and flashed a tight smile. Mycroft frowned at her. “Did you send that text?”

“No, sir,” she replied. 

“I did.”

Mycroft turned to see a distinguished elderly gentleman walking into the room on a cane and his eyebrows jumped in surprise, “Mr. Steed! No, it’s Sir John now, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is,” the gentleman replied, “Please be seated, Mycroft. We have much to discuss while we wait for our illustrious guests.”

Mycroft flexed an eyebrow, “Such as your connection to Project Eleven?”

Sir John chuckled, “Yes, I do apologise for distressing you.”

Mycroft frowned, “And how did **you** know?”

“You were an exceptional student, Mycroft. I count myself very fortunate to have had you in my Homeland Security classes. A remarkable boy with some unusual avenues of research,” Sir John said. Mycroft’s frown deepened. “But still, a boy. It wasn’t hard to figure out where you were going with the questions you were asking. It was clear you were set on… acquiring practical experience, in certain aspects of the business. Naturally I became curious. When I understood the whole of the situation, I contacted an old business partner of mine,” A white-haired woman at the table waved. “And arranged for her to be on the same train.”

Mycroft frowned then his eyes widened, “Dame Emma! Oh I do beg your pardon, I didn’t recognise you!”

“Quite alright, my dear Mycroft, I’ve changed quite a lot over the last twenty years. And how is Minerva?”

A sneeze echoed from the front of the hall but there was nobody there. Mycroft shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. Minerva sniffled, sighed, and put her hood down. “Apart from blowing her cover, she’s doing well,” he said as she approached. 

“So glad you could join us, Miss Holmes.”

Dame Emma rose to clasp Minerva’s hand, “My dear, it’s so good to see you again.”

‘And you,’ Minerva signed, ‘You and he are business partners?’

“Around the time you were wee, yes,” Sir John chuckled, “And we stayed in touch.”

Minerva turned to Mycroft, ‘She was the one I met when I got off the train. The one who looked after my ankle and found me a safe place to stay. Then she helped me get into secretary school.’

Dame Emma nodded, “Young homeless girls are terribly vulnerable, much more so when they’re disabled as well. John was very fond of you, Mycroft, and when he realized what you were trying to do, we decided to intervene and at least make sure your sister would be safe and have a way to make a living.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft’s voice was rough with emotion, “I cannot express how much that means to me.” He swallowed. “Are you her sponsors, then?”

“Yes. You know that I have assets in manufacturing,” Sir John replied, “I offered Minerva space in one when her odourant spray became too popular to keep up with the demand herself. She’s been performing her quite a lot of research there, ever since. Ah, Lord Axworthy, Dame Aedith, how good of you to join us. Ah, and Sir Geoffrey, you’re just in time.” Mycroft nodded urbanely to the newcomers. “I believe Lord Gilliflower and Lady Smallwood will be joining us shortly.”

A sound from the kitchens drew Mycroft’s attention and he lifted a sceptical eyebrow, “It appears some of your guests are arriving through the delivery door.”

“It pays to be discreet,” Sir John smiled as the newest arrivals stepped into the room, “Hence this place.”

Mycroft slowly turned away from the new arrivals. “Which is mine, so I presume this is not a hostile meeting.”

Lord Axworthy spoke up, “Mr. Holmes, you are aware of the situation within the government and the effect it’s having on the nation.”

“Obviously.”

“We have been in development of a means to counter that effect.”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow, “All of you?” Mycroft looked at the newcomers, “I thought you had an obligation to remain… non-partisan.”

The guest nodded, “We have so many laws now restricting our power, we have to remain undisclosed but there are concerns. It was thought that this would be the best way to facilitate action.”

“Nationalism has been reviving, not only here but in Canada and the United States, all across the globe,” Lord Axworthy said, “Here, it’s riding on a tide of nostalgia for the days of empire gone by, a time when England was a leader in industry.”

“We believe the Diamond Sun technology will satisfy that desire,” the guest nodded, “The Diamond Sun power system will revolutionize England’s energy industry and put us at the forefront of a new wave of green technology. The people yearning for empire will buy in on that.”

“That was the missing piece,” Dame Emma said, “We have everything else. We have a candidate, a platform, a plan, what we needed was a way to capture that demographic.”

“And you turned to Minerva? But Project Eleven has never been known to sell her inventions.”

The guest smiled and leaned forward, “’When you need to stop a war, you call Wonder Woman.’”

Mycroft turned to stare at Minerva, who gazed back levelly. 

Sir John looked up, “Ah, Lady Smallwood, Lord Gilliflower! You’ve arrived just in time, we were just getting to the part that concerns you.”

“Thank you, Sir John, Mycroft…” Lady Smallwood broke off abruptly. 

“Please don’t,” the other guest held up a hand, “Not here. Here I’m just a Concerned Citizen, if you will.”

“O-of course. And what **is** this? Mycroft?”

Dame Emma stood up, “Lady Smallwood, Mr. Holmes, Lord Gilliflower… You are aware of the rumours of an action being planned to reduce the staffing levels of your departments?”

“The rumours are true,” Mycroft said, “And the call is coming from inside the House.” He turned to Lady Smallwood, “Your orders were to take Project Eleven alive, were they not?”

Lady Smallwood nodded, puzzled, “Yes.”

“And you knew I was going to Sherrinford to visit my sister. Why, then, did you send a sterilization team?”

Lady Smallwood’s eyes went wide, “What?! I didn’t issue any instructions after you left our meeting.”

“They were your people.”

“Mycroft, I initiated no such action!”

“I know,” he said, “Someone on your team is a mole for someone else.”

“I’ve suspected something similar,” Lord Gilliflower said, “That’s why I’ve pulled back on initiating actions myself, lately.”

Dame Emma nodded, “A wise precaution.”

“Project Eleven is still an active account, though, is she not?”

“As of this moment, she is not,” the other guest said, “Project Eleven is cancelled.” Mycroft sighed with relief. “I ask now that you redirect your resources towards supporting her. Project Eleven’s industries are vital to the success of this initiative.”

Lady Smallwood frowned, “And what is this initiative?”

Mycroft looked at her, “The answers to your questions, Lady Smallwood. It appears what Project Eleven was doing with the carbon and the nuclear waste is developing a green power system that these people - her supporters - hope will revolutionise Britain’s energy industry.”

Lady Smallwood stared at them. Then she looked around the room thoughtfully and nodded, “Someone wants to stop this initiative from taking place, hence the moles. Have we any idea who?”

“Actually, I do,” Lord Gilliflower said. He withdrew a paper from his waistcoat pocket, “Mr. Holmes, I was going to bring this to your attention once I was more certain… and confident.” 

Mycroft smiled thinly at the implications. He read the paper and flexed an eyebrow in some surprise. “The Earl of Undershaw? Now that **is** interesting.”

Dame Emma frowned, “Henry Brandon? How is he connected in all this?”

Lord Gilliflower spread his hands, “I cannot say for sure, ma’am. What evidence I’ve found points to his involvement but not enough to call it proof.”

Mycroft tapped the paper thoughtfully before passing it to Lady Smallwood. “No, but this is enough of a lead that my resources may be able to pursue it further.” He cleared his throat to cover the soft snort that emanated from the direction of the kitchen.

Lord Gilliflower shook his head sadly, “The agent I had to retire last month, I’m almost certain he was reporting to Brandon.”

Mycroft nodded, “And Brandon has the connections to place assets among our teams, giving him access to very high level information as we saw with the Sherrinford incident. If your hunch is correct, Lord Gilliflower, then we have a problem.”


	14. Stand By Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gazed at him and all of the fear, anguish, and rage he’d been holding back welled up and forced his lips into a mirthless smile, “We don’t even know if these are the same people who took Rosie.”
> 
> Sherlock gazed back with sympathy. “No we don’t, but they’re the best lead we’ve got. And Mycroft has a saying about coincidences that I’ve repeatedly found to be accurate.”

“This is why we didn’t pursue the invisibility technology,” Mycroft groused, “Because human beings just can’t stay **quiet.** ”

‘It’s not my fault I’m allergic to your lemon polish,’ Minerva signed. 

“I’m **not** one of your ‘resources,’” Sherlock snapped.

“Both perfectly valid excuses, I’m sure,” Mycroft sneered. 

After the meeting had adjourned, Mycroft had closed up the Diogenes Club and brought them all back to his own house. Sherlock was snooping about as usual, Minerva was peering at his high-tech security system, and John was sitting in a chair and brooding. 

That was unusual. Usually John just looked uncomfortable, since the museum-neat atmosphere of Mycroft’s home was about as far away from the comfortable chaos of 221B as one could get without leaving the country. But right now, something was weighing very heavily on his mind and he was having some internal debate. He’d taken out his phone and was tapping at it.

Mycroft took his own chair and huffed, “I will have to have a few words with my assistant.”

“Not happy they invaded Diogenes?” Sherlock said, then relented, “They need you. You practically **are** the British government.”

“I have an obligation to remain neutral.”

“But you’re not.”

“Of course not,” Mycroft sighed, “The outcome of the vote has played merry hell with information access and the movement of agents.”

Sherlock had also taken out his phone and was drawing his finger around on the screen. “What about this Henry Brandon?”

“The Earl of Undershaw? Yes, he’s been something of an enigma,” Mycroft said.

“Any pictures?” John asked. 

“A few, yes,” Mycroft said, bringing out his phone, “He doesn’t like to be photographed much. The man is rather reclusive.”

“I imagine he is,” John said, so cryptically that Sherlock twitched an eyebrow and glanced at him. 

“He doesn’t appear at House very often, so it’s been difficult to determine the degree of his influence.”

“I’m surprised he appears at House at all,” John said. Now Mycroft frowned at him as well. John looked at them both and appeared to make a decision, “Henry Brandon was my grandfather.”

Sherlock and Mycroft stared at him. Then they looked at each other, then back at John. “Are you saying… you’re in line to be an Earl?”

“No, because Henry only had the one daughter, my mother, and he practically disowned her when she married Hardy Watson, my da, so the title was lost when Granddad died.”

Mycroft and Sherlock stared at each other again. “Died?”

John nodded firmly, “He died years ago in a hunting accident. As far as I knew, the Undershaw estate was sold. I’ve texted Harry.” His phone chirped and he thumbed it open. Then he smiled his mirthless smile.

Mycroft opened his phone and tapped on an image. He zoomed it to focus on a tall man with a thin face, glancing warily towards the camera. Sherlock peered over his shoulder, then leaned to look at the picture on John’s phone. Then he stared between the two, frowning in shock. “This is not the same man?” Mycroft asked.

John showed him his phone, “Harry dug this up, from when Mummy was a little girl.” The man in the faded photo was the spit and image of John Hamish Watson.

“Wonderful,” Mycroft hissed, “An imposter in the House, with enough access to place his spies among our people.”

Sherlock paced ellipses back and forth, fingers tented against his lips. “Did your grandfather have any brothers or male cousins?”

“No, he was the only boy in his family.”

Sherlock nodded, “So the usurper chose a peerage with no heir apparent and no heirs presumptive, who was estranged from his only daughter so the usurpation wouldn’t be immediately noticed.” His phone chimed and he thumbed it open.

“And has been quietly working away in the shadows ever since,” Mycroft finished grimly, “Lord Gilliflower was right.”

“So who is this man and what’s his agenda,” John nodded.

“Whatever it is, it’s significant. Lord Gilliflower doesn’t like to lose agents, so if he felt forced to retire one, then he felt there was a serious threat to our security.”

John looked up at Sherlock, “At this rate, the case wall’s going to spread all over the flat.” Sherlock didn’t reply but kept staring at his phone. “What is it?”

“The second video.”

* * * *

“Hellooooo, Mr. Holmes! Bet you never thought you’d see **this** face again!” the man in the video grinned toothily, “And you haven’t. You knew my brother Jimmy. He’s dead now, because of you. I’m a little unhappy about that. Jimmy was a good kid.”

“Like fuck he was,” John muttered under his breath.

“You took away my brother, Mr. Holmes, so we took away your sister!” The man raised his arm and stepped away, revealing Eurus, still bound to her chair, slumped and pale, her hair falling partly over her face. She looked drugged. “A life for a life, Mr. Holmes? But, to be honest, Jimmy did kind of get a little obsessive towards the end there. Really, the crown jewels? That was all kinds of embarrassing. So, I’m not going to kill you.” Sherlock snorted. “But my father, my family, they invested a lot in Jimmy’s education, so… the value of a life. What do you say? Let’s call it… twelve million pounds and call it done, shall we? That’s more than fair, Mr. Holmes. I’ll never get my brother back but you, Mr. Holmes, twelve million pounds and you get your sister back. I’ll let you think about it. Ta-tah!”

“A ransom demand? How banal,” Mycroft sighed. 

“Quite,” Sherlock agreed, “It’s obviously just bait to draw you out for an assassination attempt.” He looked at Minerva, “You’ve been expecting this. That’s why you’ve brought so many weapons.” 

Minerva’s smirk was as mirthless as John’s.

“Most likely there’ll be a third video with drop point instructions,” said Mycroft, “Do you think they hadn’t worked that part out yet?”

“They got the wrong sister and the wrong Mr. Holmes, I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Sherlock said, replaying the video.

“Unfortunately they were smart enough to use a generic location,” John said in a neutral voice. Sherlock glanced at him. “A plain background, no ceiling in the shot, no floor, no lamps, no identifying features at all.”

“Maybe,” Sherlock said. Sherlock played the video again, scrutinizing its details. Then he noticed something and played it again. “She’s mouthing something.”

He zoomed in on Eurus’s face and they watched it a few more times, then John shook his head, “Looks like she’s saying ‘liberate me’? She’s calling for help, wants us to save her?”

“Why such an odd choice of words?”

Mycroft came around for a closer look. He shook his head, “That’s three syllables. It’s not ‘liber-ate mee’, it’s ‘leeber-ah-tay may’, that’s Latin. But why would she speak Latin? It isn’t even accurate Latin.”

“Maybe it’s code?” John offered. 

Minerva was shaking her head. 

“’Liberate me’, ‘liberate me’, why is that familiar,” John murmured as they watched the video again. Suddenly his eyes widened, “Oh! It’s a quote, from a movie, a, a horror movie, what was that film…” Sherlock took out his phone. “A horror movie about a space ship, story kind of fell apart towards the end there. Someone says ‘liberate me’ and it becomes a hook in the plot…”

“’ _Event Horizon_ ,’” Minerva signed.

“Yes!! That’s the one!”

“Brilliant, John, both of you, just brilliant,” Sherlock turned his phone and grinned fiercely, “The old Horizon Event Centre, it’s been abandoned for years.”

John gazed at it and all of the fear, anguish, and rage he’d been holding back welled up and forced his lips into a mirthless smile, “We don’t even know if these are the same people who took Rosie.”

Sherlock gazed back with sympathy. “No we don’t, but they’re the best lead we’ve got. And Mycroft has a saying about coincidences that I’ve repeatedly found to be accurate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you get the shout-out in this chapter, you are very well read in this fandom ^_~


	15. White Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There is a quote from the _Wonder Woman_ comic book. It goes 'Don't kill if you can wound. Don't wound if you can subdue. Don't subdue if you can pacify, and don't raise your hand at all until you've extended it.' Minerva lives by that rule and she makes that calculation at, well, at Holmes speed."

“Hello? Hello? Is this thing working?”

“Yes, Da, the Skype is working just fine, just tip the camera up.”

_Of course. Jimmy the IT whiz has a technophobe father. People are so predictable._

“Well? What’s going on, then, Jamie? What’s the status?”

_Wait, did you name **both** of your sons ‘James?’_

“We have Miss Holmes. She’s not doing very much. We’ve sent the demands to Mr. Holmes.”

_Oh my god and I thought our names were silly. Our names are silly but at least they’re original._

“Good. Himself wants him out of the way as quickly as possible so none of that ridiculous posturing that Jimmy was prone to, just get on with it.”

_Why didn’t you just call them Pete and Re-Pete?_

“Turn me around, let me talk to her.”

“Okay, Da,” Jamie sighed, “She’s kind of out of it though.”

He turned the laptop around. Eurus lifted her head and shook her hair back to peer at the old man staring smugly at her through the screen. Long seconds stretched out. 

_Oh my god!_

The old man’s expression didn’t change. “Jamie,” he said pleasantly, “Who is this woman?”

_He’s figured it out!_

“What? It’s Miss Holmes, Da.”

“No, she is not. Miss Holmes is pushing fifty. Does she look like she’s pushing fifty?”

“Fifty doesn’t look like fifty anymore, Da, I keep telling you.”

“You’ve got the wrong bint, you idiot!”

Jamie rolled his eyes and swung the laptop back to himself, “Da, she was at Sherrinford, right where you said we’d find her.”

“I told you to grab the Holmes woman!”

“This **is** the Holmes woman, Da, she had a name plate and everything!”

_Don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh_

“She what? Are you telling me you grabbed **an inmate**? You idiot! You were **supposed** to grab Mycroft Holmes’s sister!”

“Whuzzat ‘bout Myckie?”

They both stopped and Jamie stared at her. “Turn it around again, you fool, let me look at her!” He rolled his eyes and turned the laptop again. The old man frowned at her. “Do you know Mycroft Holmes?”

“He visited me lots. He brought me my treats.”

“Why do you call him Mikey?”

“’S his nickname. He duzzen like it much.”

“Maybe she’s a cousin or something?” Jamie suggested.

The older man looked very vexed indeed, “Hmm. If she is, she might still lead us back to Violet. You, what’s your name, girl?”

_This’ll be fun._ “I’m Eurus.” They just stared blankly at her. _Jimmy never mentioned me? How rude! I call that cheek. This could be useful._

“Right, I’ll put in a call to his Right Honourableness and see if there’s any way to salvage this mess. At least you got the other one right. I swear to God, Jamie, **this** is why you’re just a station master!” 

Eurus lifted her head, “’E’s not verr’ happy wiv you, izze?”

Jamie just narrowed his eyes at her. “Da, she said she knew Jimmy.”

“What? How’s that possible? How could you know Jimmy, girl?”

“He came t’visit me once.”

“At Sherrinford?” Jamie frowned, “How’s that possible? When?”

“Five y’rs ‘go.”

“Five years ago? Five years, five…” the old man’s eyes went wide, “Oh.. Shit! Jamie, you imbecile, she’s the psychopath! You grabbed the psychopath, you idiot, the arsonist! Don’t wait for Holmes, just kill her!”

_Awwwwww…_

“But Da, the ransom…”

“Forget the ransom, you idiot, kill her! Right now!”

The thugs drew their weapons and sauntered forward.

“She’s tied up and drugged, Da!”

“ **No she isn’t!** ”

“Aww, you figured it out!” Eurus flipped her chair backwards, her feet smacking the hands of the two nearest thugs. “What gave it away?” She rolled and the chair cracked, smashing herself into the legs of the thugs. They fell heavily on top of her and the chair shattered. She smashed her head up and back into the face of one and oiled out from beneath them, grabbing the other’s head and wrenching, kicking the remains of the chair out of the zipties on her ankles. 

“Jamie! Jamie, get out of there! The rest of you, KILL HER!”

A glimpse of metal. She reached out and intercepted the knife, spun around and slammed her elbow into the throat of the wielder, completed her spin and slammed the knife into the abdomen of another man. She felt something nudge her and whirled, slicing a ribbon of red across a third man. 

_Don’t forget the package. Right right, there was a package on the table near Jamie._

“ **Jamie! Jamie! Just grab her and go!** ”

_The package is important._

Jamie snapped the laptop closed, threw it under his arm and grabbed the package with the other arm. Eurus rolled and flung her arm out and he went down screaming. “I’ll take that.” _What the hell keeps pinching me?_ She looked around to see two more thugs backing out of the room. She staggered, feeling muzzy, and looked to see what had bitten her. _Oh._ Clutching the package to her chest, she got her feet under her and followed the men. _Noisy package._

There was a lot of screaming. Something else stung her and she rolled, keeping the package close to her chest, and came up knife first. 

“John! John, over there!”

And then she looked up and saw the Elephant. The Elephant stood over her, crossed her wrists, and a concussive blast threw the men back. 

Two men were running towards her. Eurus recognised them both and struggled to her feet, managing a few steps before collapsing to her knees, holding up the package, the laptop clattering on the ground. “Eurus? Eurus, hold still. Eurus, you’re bleeding.”

Carefully she placed the package in the shorter man’s arms. “I got the package for you. I knew it was yours. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Eurus,” John said gravely. He checked Rosie over quickly before handing her to Sherlock, “Nothing seems to be broken and there are no cuts that I can see, so the blood probably isn’t hers.” He turned back, “Eurus, hold still, you’re bleeding heavily and you’ve taken enough darts to drop an elephant.”

Eurus shook her head. “I’m not the Elephant, she is,” she slurred. 

John frowned, unable to translate that. “Sherlock, she’s been stabbed, shot, and her hand is slashed open. I’m going to need your help. Where’s Mycroft?”

“Right here,” Mycroft said.

“I brought you Jamie’s laptop,” Eurus managed. 

John smiled without any amusement. “I trust you more than Minerva right now but Kehaar is safe. Take Rosie, I need Sherlock here with me. Sherlock, put pressure on that wound. If I can get this clamped, it’ll buy her more time. Eurus? Eurus, stay with me, alright? Eurus, look at Sherlock. Look at Sherlock, Eurus.”

“I know you know how to do this,” Sherlock hissed as he handed…. John’s daughter over to his brother.

Mycroft sighed, “And this was a new suit.” Nevertheless he settled the baby against his chest. 

He turned to see a man approaching him. Minerva rushed at him, reached up to seize the man’s head, and swarmed up him, legs wrapping around his neck, pulling him off balance, much too hard of a wrench as he fell. 

Mycroft stood over them and shook his head. “I **am** sorry,” he sighed, “If you were truly one of ours, you would have known.”

* * * *

“What happened back there?”

Mycroft gazed out the window in silence. “They’ve been taken into custody, those who didn’t escape. They’ll be questioned. I’ll be working on the laptop myself, of course.”

“Mycroft.”

Mycroft turned to face his little brother. “You were correct,” he said, “It was an assassination attempt.”

“Minerva just rushed him! She just about destroyed him.”

“She pretty much did.” They turned to see John closing the waiting lounge door behind him. “Eurus is in recovery. Her wounds were mostly superficial. Can’t say the same for the bloke Minerva attacked. His spinal cord’s been severed at the neck. He’ll live but that’s all.”

Mycroft sighed and nodded, unsurprised. “I’ve said before that Minerva is dangerous. She is extremely hyper-vigilant, as I’m sure you’ve observed, and she reads body language very well. The fellow had a dart hidden in his palm. He might as well have announced his intentions out loud.” He paused to fiddle with his umbrella. “Whenever any of our people were sent against Project Eleven, they were advised that if they failed, they should abort the mission. If they have a second shot at her, they were **not** to take it. Ever.”

“Why?”

“As I’ve said before, Minerva thinks of herself as a super-hero of sorts. There is a quote from the _Wonder Woman_ comic book, _The Circle_ , I believe. It goes ‘Don’t kill if you can wound. Don’t wound if you can subdue. Don’t subdue if you can pacify. And don’t raise your hand at all until you have extended it.’”

John nodded, “Sounds good. I like the sound of that. Good rule.”

“Indeed. Minerva lives by that rule and she makes that calculation at, well, at Holmes speed. But she is driven by the need to protect herself and her family, she’s hyper-vigilant, and she’s found that there are other ways to render a person harmless. Minerva won’t kill you if she can avoid it, but she has absolutely no hesitation about maiming you.”

“The second chance,” Sherlock said.

“Quite so. Our agents are told, if they lose against her once, they will likely live to tell about it. Lose twice, well… They’ll live. Nothing else is guaranteed.”

“Jesus,” John swore.

Sherlock nodded, “So that’s why Eurus is afraid of her?”

“Most likely, yes. I don’t particularly wish to know who would be faster, should Eurus decide to attack.”


	16. Who's That Girl?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Elephant touched Eurus's hand lightly. She dipped her head and looked at her through her lashes, _“You’re even quoting him, did you even realize?”_
> 
> Eurus swallowed, digesting that. She looked away, thinking about it, remembering. She glanced at the Elephant and looked away again. Then she looked back and frowned, _“Why aren’t you like me?”_
> 
> One corner of the Elephant’s mouth lifted slightly and her eyebrows twitched, _“Who says I’m not?”_

_Flying so high above the grey dust, watching the Earth rise, up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky, beep beep beep_

_Flying so high, beep beep beep_

_Pokey feeling in my arm, beep beep_

_Flying so high, she looked up_

_And saw the Elephant._

The Elephant was staring down at her. Unmoving. Unblinking. 

Eurus lifted her chin, _“I brought the package.”_

The Elephant nodded gravely, _“Yes you did.”_ She smiled a little, _”Well done. That was good.”_

Eurus rolled her eyes and huffed and wrinkled her brow, _“Everybody says that. Why do people say that? Good and bad are fairy tales.”_

The Elephant smirked and her face became a caricature of recognition, _“Ah, wait, I know this one…”_ She shifted into a perfect imitation of him, _”‘Good isn’t really good and evil isn’t really wrong.’ Did I get it right?”_ she smirked, shifting back into herself. Eurus stared at her. The Elephant tipped her head curiously, _”Why do you believe that?”_

Eurus frowned, _”I’m more clever than that.”_

The Elephant rolled her eyes and flexed her eyebrows, twitching her lip, _“Mm, yes, you’re so clever you clevered yourself into life-long incarceration. That’s very clever indeed. But not terribly smart. Or wise.”_ She watched Eurus then curled her lip derisively and sniffed, _”And you’re still letting the old fuck get away with it.”_

Eurus frowned, _“What do you mean?”_

The Elephant lifted her eyebrows, _“You’re exactly what he wanted you to be.”_

_“YOU…”_ Eurus struggled against the cuffs shackling her to the hospital bed.

The Elephant touched her hand lightly. She dipped her head and looked at her through her lashes, _“You’re even quoting him, did you even realize?”_

Eurus swallowed, digesting that. She looked away, thinking about it, remembering. She glanced at the Elephant and looked away again. Then she looked back and frowned, _“Why aren’t you like me?”_

The Elephant raised her brows mildly, _“Hm?”_

Eurus struggled to reach the bed control and the Elephant helped her to sit up a bit. _“You went through the same things I did,”_ Eurus frowned with curiosity, _”You had the same life I did. Why aren’t you like me?”_

One corner of the Elephant’s mouth lifted slightly and her eyebrows twitched, _“Who says I’m not?”_

Eurus huffed, _“It’s obvious. Why not?”_

The Elephant looked amused, _“Oh dear. You really can’t tell?”_

_“Tell me!”_

_“It’s simple,”_ the Elephant smiled.

_“Why aren’t you like me?”_

The Elephant looked back, her expression sly, _“It’s a choice. I choose not to be. That’s all it is.”_ Eurus digested that in silence, staring at her. The Elephant sat back in her chair and propped one foot up on the seat, cupping her hands around her knee. She tipped her head back and flexed her brows, _“Good and evil aren’t fairy tales, they’re choices. They’re choices we make every day, every minute.”_ She glanced at Eurus, _”Every action you’ve taken, you chose to do. You could have chosen not to do them.”_ Finally she looked at Eurus directly, _”Why did you rescue the baby?”_

Eurus looked away uncomfortably. She glanced back a little, _“You’re cross with me.”_

_“I’m a little annoyed, yes,”_ The Elephant huffed. Her lips flattened then pursed, _”You could have been very helpful but your most recent choices have scuttled that.”_ She frowned, curious, and flattened her lips again, pulling one corner to the side, _”You really don’t understand what Mycroft was doing, do you? Why did you rescue the baby?”_

_“Why do you keep asking?”_ Eurus frowned.

The Elephant lifted her brows archly, _“Because that was a different choice for you and I want to know why you chose it.”_

Eurus looked down and away. _”I wanted to make things better.”_

The Elephant stood up and lifted her eyebrows, her lips and face setting into an expression that Mycroft often wore as she looked down at Eurus, _”With some people, forgiving them is merely giving them permission to do it again.”_ She leaned down to kiss Eurus’s forehead and smiled, _”See that you’re not one of them.”_

Eurus looked up at her, _”They’re not after you.”_

And the Elephant was surprised.

* * * *

‘She’s awake,’ Minerva signed. 

John frowned, “Already? She shook that off fast.”

Minerva nodded, “’Inconceivable!’”

“Well I wouldn’t call it that,” John said, “It’s not unheard it, just surprising, that’s all.” 

“’Inconceivable!’” Minerva quoted again, then shrugged and signed, ‘You should come in. She found something interesting.’

John nerved himself and lifted his hands, ‘Is she ready for pudding?’

Everyone stared at him. Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose and Sherlock glanced at the ceiling. ‘Do you mean visitors?’ he signed. Minerva started giggling. 

John gave up, “Look, I know I’m not good with it.”

“Oh no, John, you’re very good. Your signing is crisp and clear and your facial morphemes are spot on. It’s just you keep getting the wrong vocabulary.”

“Yes alright,” John huffed. He tugged down his jacket and pushed the hospital room door open. The others filed in after him.

Eurus lay pale but alert, watching them. Minerva went to sit beside her, near her head. “How are you feeling?” Mycroft asked.

“Could do without the IV,” Eurus said, her voice still weak.

“Yes, I keep hoping Minerva will invent a transdermal IV but she hasn’t done it yet,” he smiled at Minerva then looked back at Eurus, “Thank you for the laptop.”

“Cracked it yet?”

“I’ve had other concerns. It shouldn’t take long.”

“They’re not very clever. Did you know all three of them are named James?”

Mycroft was actually surprised, “What?”

“James is the daddy and the sons are Jimmy and Jamie.” Mycroft pinched his nose. “They’re not clever but whoever is running them is. James referred to someone as ‘his Right Honourableness.’”

“Which is how one addresses an Earl,” Mycroft nodded and looked at Sherlock, “Most likely Brandon.” 

Sherlock nodded, “Then we need to find out who Brandon is.”

Mycroft pulled out his phone and called up an image. He showed it to Eurus, “Are you familiar with this man?”

Eurus stared at it for a long time, brow creasing from time to time. Finally she shook her head. “Who is he?”

“An imposter. He’s taken over the identity of Henry Brandon, Earl of Undershaw. We have reason to believe he’s backing much of the unrest within the House. Given the extent of the younger Moriarty’s activities, it’s not surprising to learn that there may be a connection. Or that they’re hunting Minerva.”

“They’re not, though,” Eurus said, “Well they are. But they weren’t after The Elephant, they wanted Mycroft Holmes’s sister.”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow, “’The Elephant’?”

“They said they were hoping she’d lead them back to Violet. Who’s Violet?”

Mycroft frowned. His lips thinned and he closed his eyes to scan his memory but came up with nothing. He looked at John but he was just as baffled.

Minerva shook her head and sang, “’I don’t remember, I don’t recall. I don’t know anyone, anyone at all.’” 

“Shut up!”

Mycroft scowled at Sherlock, ready to snap at him, but stopped. Sherlock had his hands to his forehead, his eyes closed and his brow deeply furrowed with effort. “Everyone, please, just… shut up a bit.” John froze and Minerva stilled. 

_”People don’t usually take teenage girls seriously.”_

_“I wonder what it would have been like, if her past hadn’t caught up to her. Husband, child, quiet life… I wonder what might have happened.”_

_Once you eliminate the impossible…_

_”A complete flake, my wife, but she happens to be a genius.”_

_…then whatever remains…_

_”Gave it all up for children.”_

_…however improbable…_

_”That silly old thing?”_

_…must be the truth._

Slowly he reached out a hand, carefully, pointing to, “Mycroft…”

“Here.”

“Run a search on Miranda Lois Waterhouse.”

“Why?”

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked at him, “Because I think you’re going to find that she’s dead and someone else has been living her life. Someone named Violet.”


	17. Mama, I'm Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big Reveal time!

_The bell didn’t ring so someone with a key. Light tap on the stairs, footsteps placed in the exact middle of the steps._ “Get the china cups, John,” Sherlock sighed, “Mycroft’s here.”

John ambled over to the door and pulled it open, catching Mycroft in mid-knock. “The kettle’s on.” Mycroft lowered his hand, looking disgruntled.

“Greg’s got back to me,” Sherlock said, “He found something.”

“Rather a lot, I imagine,” Mycroft sighed, “I did some digging of my own. What I found was… disturbing, to say the least.” He hesitated for a moment, “Where is Minerva?”

“Downstairs retrofitting Mrs. Hudson’s car,” Sherlock took out his phone and tapped out a text. “She’s on her way up,” he said.

“I cracked Professor Moriarty’s laptop. I now understand why he thought you were me.”

Sherlock frowned and looked at him. Mycroft had that look, the one that John referred to as his ‘unimpressed duck face’, as he held up his tablet and showed Sherlock a selection of documents and emails. Sherlock read through them then his eyes and mouth went wide, “… _Oh!_ ” and he started to laugh.

John set the tea tray down onto the living room table. “Sorry, what?”

“He worked at Baskerville, John.”

“Really? **Oh!** He must have been there when…”

“When you stole my pass and pretended to be me,” Mycroft finished, looking so ‘unimpressed duck’ that John lost it giggling.

“I had your permission.”

“ **Eventually,** ” Mycroft snapped, “And only because I needed to know what was going on there, myself. They’d been giving me the runaround for months.”

“So it all worked out in the end.”

“Apart from the bit where that stunt came back to bite you on the arse,” John snickered.

“And the part where our little sister was kidnapped and gravely injured.”

“Her wounds were mostly superficial apart from that lucky shot,” John said, “She’s healing well. She’ll be fine after a few more days.”

“Really not the point, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said archly.

The door opened and Minerva stepped in, her hands and shirt streaked with engine grease. She looked at Sherlock and Mycroft and sang, “’I say hey, what’s going on?’”

Mycroft took a deep breath. “’I’ve been thinking about what you told me,’” he sang, aware that Sherlock had frozen, “’Mulling it over in my mind, and much to my surprise I find that you were absolutely right, you’ve been right all along, you’re absolutely right and I’m wrong.’”

“YES!” Sherlock punched the air and waved his phone, “I got it all!”

“I think that just cured my depression!” John said. 

Mycroft shook his head and sighed then looked back at Minerva, “’Take it through the good times, see it through the bad times, whatever it takes is what I’m gonna do.’”

“’Let ‘em say we’re crazy. What do they know? Put your arms around me, brother, don’t ever let go.’”

“’Deep in your eyes, I think I see the future. I realize this is my last chance.’”

“’We can build this dream together, standing strong forever, nothing’s gonna stop us now.’”

Mycroft nodded sadly then embraced her and sighed. 

“What changed your mind?” Sherlock asked. 

Mycroft glanced at him, “You saw the news that broke this morning, surely. Our people had been working on that for a while now.”

Sherlock nodded, “What did **you** find out?”

“Quite a bit. There are multiple connections, including to the work you were doing in Serbia and Georgia.”

“The Moriarty connection.”

“Quite. Sherlock, this is international and it goes back at least two generations,” Mycroft said.

“Not much of a surprise,” Sherlock sighed, “What about mathematics prodigies named Violet.”

Mycroft pressed his lips into a thin line, “Time for another family conference.”

* * * *

Eurus’s hospital cell had been transformed into a mock-up of 221B Baker Street. They’d even brought in an electric fireplace. Eurus sat on her bed, pale, her bruises starting to fade, noticeably improved. 

Sherlock and John sat in their customary positions, opposite each other. Sherlock sat with his fingers tented. John sat in a fake relaxed position, his hands steady as steel. Minerva had placed herself almost equidistant between Mycroft and Eurus. Both women wore the same blank expression and Sherlock suppressed a shiver. Mycroft’s face was stone. Footsteps and voices echoed down the corridor and a flicker of anxiety was quickly suppressed. 

“…do hope there’s a good reason for this,” Mummy was saying as she strode through the door, “Daddy’s cancelled his tee time for it. Not that we aren’t delighted to visit you again, darling.” She smiled at Eurus. Eurus did not smile back.

Nobody did. Daddy took a quick glance around the room and met John’s eyes, before sidling into a chair even as Sherlock said, “Sit down, please.”

Mummy didn’t sit. “Sherlock, what is this about? What happened? And who’s this?”

Silence fell like lead. The twins were doing everything in perfect synchronicity and that was absolutely deliberate. Sherlock noticed the tiny flickers of their eyes and the minute shifts in position that kept them within each other’s peripheral vision. Minerva’s face was blank. Mummy and Daddy stared at her, clearly finding her familiar. Finally she sang, “’Hello Muddah. Hello Faddah.’”

Their mouths dropped open and Mummy raised the back of her hand to cover her gasp, “ ** _Minnie?!_** ”

“Oh my God!”

“You’re alive?!”

“Minnie!”

Mummy turned on Mycroft and screamed, **_”What the hell’s the matter with you?”_**

Minerva’s hand shot out, intercepting the slap, and her eyes were hard. “’But if you touch my brother, all that anti-violence shit goes out the window along with you and the rest of your team,’” she sang.

Eurus’s face was blank.

“Sit down,” Sherlock said again. They did. 

“Mikey told us she was dead!” Daddy said. 

“He only did what had already been demonstrated as acceptable,” Sherlock said.

_”What?”_

“No photographs, no mention of her at all by anyone. No mention that I had a big sister. Mycroft grew up hiding the fact that he had a twin. She was already dead to you.”

“That’s not true!” Mummy was on her feet again, “Sherlock, that is **not** true!”

Sherlock glanced at Eurus, “We never knew we had a big sister. We never knew Mycroft had a twin.”

Mummy hesitated. “It’s true we never told you. We couldn’t. We were advised-”

“Minnie sustained a birth injury,” Daddy injected. John nodded. “Her development was behind. She couldn’t talk. We tried everything, the best therapists…”

“When Mikey finally started talking, I always hoped…” Mummy turned to look at Minerva.

“’Something is wrong, it doesn’t belong, and it’s not natural to sing that song,’” Minerva sang.

Mummy slumped, disappointed. “I had hoped… maybe… after all this time…”

“’My lips are moving and there’s sound coming out,’” Minerva sang drily, “’The words are audible but I have my doubts that you realize what has been said.’”

John shook his head, “It’s true she doesn’t talk but she sings and uses sign language.”

Daddy shook his head sadly, “It doesn’t mean anything, John. The singing… it’s just echolalia.”

“’What are words for? When no one listens, it’s no use talking at all.’”

John nodded to her and looked at Daddy again, “It’s **not** ‘just echolalia.’ We haven’t had any trouble understanding her. She can’t talk, no, but she communicates just fine. Even Eurus understands her.”

“John,” Daddy said patiently, “My brother was one of the finest in his field. He personally oversaw Minnie’s care and it was he who recommended that we place her into his institute so that she could receive the full-time attention she needed.”

“He insisted we not mention her, for Mikey’s sake,” Mummy admitted, “I didn’t like it, of course, and the effect on poor Mike…” She shook her head, “But it was for his own good.”

“’A mother would be more concerned but when I needed you, your head was turned,’” Minerva sang. Mummy stared at her, anguished, then looked beseechingly at Sherlock.

“You weren’t the only parents he said that to,” Sherlock said. He reached into his carry-all and drew out a tablet computer, thumbed it open, and passed it to them, “Greg’s inquiries were efficient. It turns out there’s quite a lot of complaints against Rudolph Throckmorton Holmes.”

“Oh my God,” Mummy breathed. 

“ _Throckmorton?_ ” said John and Eurus. Mycroft and Minerva pinched their noses in unison.

“Sherlock, what are you telling us?”

“That Uncle Rudy had a history of persuading parents to place their children in his facilities,” Mycroft said.

“Where they were at the mercy of the moneyed predators who backed them,” Sherlock finished, “He was trafficking children for pedophiles, serial killers, ammoral researchers and the like. Including his own nieces.”

“Including Eurus,” John said, “That’s why she could throw off the drugs like that. It took me a while to understand what Minerva meant, she kept saying ‘Inconceivable’”, he looked at her, “You were referring to the iocaine powder, weren’t you. The poison. The Dread Pirate Roberts built up an immunity by repeated exposure. Eurus was drugged so often, she built up an immunity.”

Mummy was crying silently. Daddy looked stricken. 

“People like Eurus are born with a particular configuration of the brain,” Sherlock continued, “There’s a genetic component. Rudolph Holmes was known to be very persuasive. Read the complaints; it’s obvious.”

“I didn’t know,” Daddy was saying, “I didn’t know.”

“You likely suspected something was off,” Sherlock said, “Most people do. Rudolph Holmes didn’t commit any of the crimes himself, but he profited handsomely from them. He persuaded parents to surrender their children and convinced them to bury their existences. He convinced you to bury Minerva’s. So when she had to sacrifice her life to save us, Mycroft knew it wouldn’t make much difference.”

Daddy looked up at him, “Sacrifice her life? To save us? What are you talking about?”

“Minerva **is** a genius,” Mycroft said with a stubborn edge that told Sherlock that he’d been saying this for a long time, “She’s a brilliant inventor, so much so that her inventions started attracting the wrong sort of attention at a very high level. Threats were made against our family. I was in Homeland Security. We decided the best thing to do was to fake her death, to throw them off. It worked.”

Sherlock nodded, “It did work. We all grew up and you grew old. Until recently. Minerva was being hunted again. This time she came to me. We discovered she had had an earlier encounter with Eurus and we came to talk to her. Sherrinford was breached, Eurus was kidnapped, and during her captivity, Eurus learned that the pursuers weren’t after Minerva at all.”

“They were after this woman,” Mycroft said, laying down a photograph and watching his mother carefully. “Violet de Merville, a physicist who worked on England’s attempt at a nuclear program. She discovered evidence against one Professor Jephro Rucastle and turned him in for treason. The nuclear program was scrapped, everyone involved was discredited, and Miss de Merville herself was forced into hiding. It says here that the agent assigned to her case wrote that Violet de Merville was ‘young, rich, beautiful, accomplished, a wonder-woman in every way.’” Minerva and John both stared at him. “’It is this lovely, innocent girl, whom we are endeavouring to save from the clutches of a fiend.'”

“She was provided with the identity of Miranda Lois Waterhouse, who had died of measles at the age of seven,” Sherlock continued, “And moved to Yorkshire, where she met you, Daddy.”

“’Gave it all up for children’? We’ve often wondered about that,” Mycroft said, “It’s impossible to give up genius. It’s part of one’s very nature.”

“There was an incident after your book was published. After that, you shut down. You developed the persona of the ‘complete flake’ and hid,” Sherlock added.

“Until Minerva started attracting attention with her inventions.”

“John pointed out that that was highly unusual, that people don’t give teenage girls that much credit. He was right — they didn’t think Minerva was the inventor. They thought it was Violet de Merville.”

“They threatened Minerva’s family in the hopes of drawing Miss de Merville out.”

“But for some reason, they didn’t anticipate that Violet’s intelligence would be passed on to her children. They certainly didn’t anticipate that those children would take matters into their own hands. They faked Minerva’s death and that threw Violet’s pursuers off the scent for years.”

Daddy had his arms around Mummy and was rocking her. “I knew who she was,” he said quietly, “I knew what she had done and what she had to do. I still think she did the right thing in turning him in.”

“She did,” Mycroft agreed, “But she made some very powerful enemies in doing so.” He took the tablet back and thumbed through the files to a set of pictures. “Mummy, I need to know if you recognise any of these people.”

She wiped her face then scrolled through the images. She started to shake her head then stopped and flipped back to one. She frowned and tapped it, “Do you… there’s programs and things now that can show you what a kidnapped child might look like as an adult, right? Is there something that can do something similar but in reverse?”

“Yes,” Mycroft said. He took out his phone and tapped off a request. A few minutes later, his phone chirped and he thumbed open the edited photograph, now de-aged to a younger man. 

Mummy took it and stared at it. “That’s him. That’s Professor Rucastle, that’s Jephro Rucastle. But he was supposed to have died!”

“As were you,” Mycroft said, “And now he’s taken over the identity of Henry Brandon, Earl of Undershaw.”

“That’s not the first time, then,” Mummy said, “Jephro Rucastle was a false identity, too. That’s what got me into this mess, I found out who he really is. His real name is Adelbert Gruner and he’s a eugenicist. His father was Baron Wolfgang Gruner.”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow, “The Austrian murderer.”

“The Nazi,” said Mycroft.

“His son takes after him,” Mummy - Violet - affirmed.

“And now his son is in the House and having a very strong influence on the direction of our nation.”

“He’s behind a push to have the Cabinet Office security team eliminated. The attack on Eurus and Rosie was to lure Mycroft into an assassination attempt,” Sherlock said.

“Failed, thanks to my sisters.”

“What exactly did you find out, Mummy? All those years ago, what did you learn about him?”

“Everything he’d done,” she answered promptly, “He worked at the university. I had a bit of a crush on him. We courted for a while and I fancied myself in love with him and was thinking to marry him. Then I found his notebooks.” She drew a deep breath and looked at Sherlock earnestly, “They were full of his misdeeds. Every bribe, every extortion, every murder he had commissioned, he kept meticulous track of every one of them. Every one and every purpose. It was appalling. I had to do something, so I… I stole them. I stole them.”

“And turned them in,” Mycroft nodded. 

“Yes, but…” she hesitated, “I didn’t trust that anything would come of it. So I Xeroxed them.”

Mycroft blinked, “All of them?”

“Every page. It took a dashed long time, I can tell you.”

“Where are they now?” John interrupted.

Violet blinked, “Why, I suppose they must still be at Musgrove Hall, where I buried them. To be honest, I’d forgotten all about them when we moved. I haven’t thought about them in years.”

Sherlock and Mycroft looked at each other. “We thought it had become purely obsession by now, but perhaps not,” Sherlock mused.

Mycroft nodded, “Perhaps Gruner had somehow learned about the photocopies?”

“You said you buried them? Would they have burned with the house?” Sherlock asked. 

Violet shook her head, “No, I buried them outside, in the cemetery.”

Sherlock glanced at Eurus. “I bet I know where.”

* * * * 

“Thank you, you have been very helpful,” Sherlock recited at last, as he got to his feet. John rolled his eyes but smiled.

“Indeed,” Mycroft agreed, also rising, “This will move our investigations forward by quite a bit. We have a long way to go, of course, but this gives us a solid direction to pursue next.”

“And most importantly,” Sherlock inhaled and turned, “It brings Minerva’s mission to an end.” She stared at him and he took her hands, “Your gambit was successful. We grew up and now we know who was behind it, and we will handle it now from here together, as a family. But this part of it is over.”

Mycroft laid his hand on her shoulder, “’Hey, I said, grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.’” Minerva’s tears spilled over. 

“Take your better half home and put her to bed,” Sherlock said softly, “She’s been running for such a long time. Let her rest.”

Minerva stepped towards Sherlock, staring up at him. Her mouth worked and she wrung her hands anxiously. He waited, patient. She opened and closed her mouth and was getting visibly frustrated. She closed her eyes, brows furrowing with effort. “Thank you,” she said.

Sherlock glanced at Mycroft, whose own eyes were damp, who shook his head minutely. He looked back at Minerva and kissed her forehead, “Welcome home.”


	18. One More Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock looked around at a creak on an unfamiliar floorboard to see John standing at the door. He was wearing his determined face. _Uh oh._ “What is it?” Sherlock asked in a whisper.
> 
> “You didn’t answer my question,” John replied just as quietly. 
> 
> Sherlock’s mind raced. “Which one?”
> 
> John nodded towards Rosie, still peacefully nursing. “You think of her as ‘our daughter,’” he said, watching Sherlock’s throat, “How do you think of me?”

Eurus sat on her bed, her hands in her lap, her hair falling over her face. “You get to go home.”

Minerva lifted the corner of her mouth in a wry smirk, _”I’m going to live with **Mycroft.** ”_

Eurus’ lips twitched slightly upward. She glanced up through her hair, _”You said I could have been helpful. How?”_

Minerva nodded and pursed her lips, _”Yes, if you hadn’t buggered it up.”_ She heaved a sigh, _”Unfortunately, you have a laser focus.”_

_”What do you mean?”_ Eurus tipped her head and frowned.

Minerva pursed her lips again and tipped her head, looking to the side and frowning one eyebrow, _”When you focus on a goal, you can’t see anything else around it. You were a minor when you committed your crimes, you could have had a reprieve. That’s what Mycroft was working towards, that’s what he was trying to do with you, give you an outlet for your talents - all of them - and gather proof that you were ready for probation but then you went and fucked it all up.”_ She scraped her hand through her hair and blew out a frustrated breath, _”You really don’t understand Mycroft’s motivations, do you.”_

Eurus looked doubtful. 

“‘You’ve got no one to blame for your unhappiness. You got yourself into your own mess,’” Minerva sang, “‘Letting your worries pass you by, don’t you think it’s worth your time to change your mind?’”

Eurus shook her hair out of her face and looked up. “I can **still** be helpful.”

The Elephant smiled and Eurus shivered for she recognized that smile. 

Mycroft stepped back into the room, “Minerva?”

Minerva nodded to him then stepped forward and took Eurus’s hands and kissed her forehead. “‘Some day somebody's gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye,’” she sang softly, “‘Until then baby are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry? Don't you know things can change, things'll go your way if you hold on for one more day. Can you hold on for one more day?’”

And Eurus nodded.

* * * *

_’May good fortune be with you, may your guiding light be strong’ and his heart tore up as he sang the words, ‘And may you never love in vain, and in my heart you will remain forever young.’ Because he knew it would end, that time, snatched from a window where one stolen life had brought her into his world. And now it was ending. She was dead once more and once again escaping into another shadow life._

“Mycroft?”

_He held onto the memory of that stolen time, when everyone thought he was courting her because he was so overjoyed to be with his twin sister again, even under a false name, even under mistaken circumstances. Even if she couldn’t come home._

“Mycroft?”

_Until now._ He roused himself and looked around, “Sorry, what was that?”

Sherlock’s mouth quirked a half-smile - he hadn’t said anything yet. “I’ve brought you some tea.” 

“Thank you.”

“John’s working on another blog entry, in the room across from yours.” Sherlock’s half-smile broadened slightly. Minerva had disappeared during Mycroft’s tour of his house, and a brief (frantic) search found her sound asleep on Mycroft’s bed. “She’s fine. What are you looking at?”

Mycroft turned back to the pictures he had found in his study. “These are the pictures I told you about, the drawings of our ‘dream people.’”

Sherlock smiled then frowned, “These are… How old did you say you were? Five?”

“Just shy of, I believe. I’m afraid very early childhood gets a little murky.”

“Considering most people don’t remember their early childhoods at all, I’m not surprised. These are exceptionally detailed for five. Even in crayon, the features are remarkably well rendered.” He took out his phone and snapped a few pictures. 

“Mmm,” Mycroft said and smiled, “You know, that never really occurred to me until much later in life. You’re right, I suppose. Most children that age are still drawing rake-hands with far too many fingers.” Sherlock chuckled lightly and sipped his tea. “What?”

Sherlock shook his head. “Adelbert Gruner. Jephro Rucastle. Men who keep notes that meticulously are unlikely to change their habits, even after they were used against him.”

“He’ll have more,” Mycroft agreed, “He’s an older man. Since his paper notes were used against him, it’s possible that he’s turned to technology.”

“Much like Mummy,” Sherlock nodded. Mycroft frowned as if realizing something. Sherlock smirked, “Yes. You might want to investigate the Earl of Undershaw’s internet usage. Eurus said he’s clever and people don’t expect senior citizens to be terribly tech-savvy.”

“No, they don’t.” Mycroft took out his phone and tapped off a few messages. 

“Minerva has a plan underway and we’re part of it, all of us,” Sherlock mused. 

“She was tasked with putting a penny under this runaway train,” Mycroft agreed, “I don’t like not knowing where this is going.”

Sherlock’s mouth twisted into his half-smirk, “And you don’t like having to put your faith into someone you barely know.” He looked at Mycroft, “You don’t _really_ know her. You don’t know who’s influenced her, what’s pushed her as an adult, what her current habits are, or what else motivates her.”

Mycroft exhaled heavily. “That is unfortunately true. And I find it unsettling how close she’s becoming with Eurus, and how quickly.”

Sherlock nodded. “We know she won’t allow anyone to harm you, not even Mummy. If nothing else, we can count on that. England is your chief concern and her chief concern is you. This ‘runaway train’ has put you into harm’s way, so we know that whatever she does will be for the security of England because that’s what you want.”

Mycroft sighed again, “I suppose you’re right.”

Sherlock picked up his bow and settled his violin beneath his chin. “Go to bed, Mycroft. There’s nothing else you can do about it tonight.”

* * * *

The night feedings were Sherlock’s favourite. He was usually awake anyways and Rosie had a predictable sleep schedule, so she barely needed to squall before Sherlock was there with warm bottle in hand. She lay heavy in his arm, eyes closed as she nursed, half asleep. She was gaining weight and growing well. He watched her in silence, as always slightly awed that something so small could grow so fast on milk. 

Normally he loathed the peace and quiet but not at these moments. Not when Rosie lay across his lap, ready to fall asleep again the moment she finished her milk. Twenty minutes later, she would need her nappy changed, a chore that should have bothered him but didn’t. He supposed he and John were unique that way, men who weren’t bothered at changing nappies. War casualties and murder scenes will do that to a person, he supposed. But now - right now - it was just him and Rosie.

In the depth of the night, it was silent. Mycroft was asleep, spooned around Minerva, whose sleep was deep and undisturbed by dreams. John had drifted off after putting Rosie down, his snores filling the quiet left from Sherlock’s violin. Ordinary sounds that told a troubled soul that all was wel

Wait

The house was silent. _Why isn’t John snoring?_ Sherlock realized. He looked around at a creak on an unfamiliar floorboard to see John standing at the door. He was wearing his determined face. _Uh oh._ “What is it?” Sherlock asked in a whisper.

“You didn’t answer my question,” John replied just as quietly. 

Sherlock’s mind raced. “Which one?”

John nodded towards Rosie, still peacefully nursing. “You think of her as ‘our daughter,’” he said, watching Sherlock’s throat, “How do you think of me?”

Sherlock’s heart abruptly trip-hammered. He looked down at Rosie and breathed through his nose and out his mouth, trying to calm himself so as not to distress her. “I think very highly of you, John,” he tried. 

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” John said. 

“I really don’t know what you mean…”

“Yes you do,” John said. He came closer, still watching Sherlock. “You said she’s ‘our’ daughter. What does that make me? Sherlock?” Sherlock kept his gaze on Rosie. The silence drew out longer. “Starts with B?”

Sherlock focused on his breathing, his eyes never leaving Rosie. The tense silence stretched out longer and longer. John came nearer. Finally, in a voice so tiny, even he barely heard it, ”Starts with H.”

John’s breath exploded out. He looked around at the room, not seeing it. “Alright,” he said finally, “Alright.”

“John…”

“It’s fine,” John said. He passed his hand down his face. “It’s fine.” After a moment, he said, “Then I guess you’d be amenable to an experiment I’ve been wanting to try for a while now.”

Sherlock frowned, “Experiment?”

“Yes,” John said, and leaned down. 

_John?_

_I… I don’t understand, John…?_

_You’ve always said… You’ve been quite insistent, in fact… You’ve made it quite clear that you aren’t interested in me…n. Why would you…?_

_Why did you say you’ve wanted to try this for a while?_

_Why now?_

_Why, John?_

_You know I don’t do…relationships…_

_I don’t even do friendships._

_Except for you._

_I suppose that you’re my exception for many things._

_And I suppose that, if you’ve been wanting to try this for a while, as you say, then I suppose that I must be an exception for you as well…?_

_In that case, I… I suppose I could… make another exception… for you…_

“You know whatever you’re telling me isn’t making it out, right?”

_…It isn’t?_

_Bugger!_

John looked away as his giggles escaped. He looked back, smiling fondly, “You really are precious.” And giggled again as Sherlock continued to look completely mystified. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. I suppose I saw some hints but… I didn’t make the connections. And yes, I know, ‘that’s because I’m an idiot,’ thank you, shut up.” 

That did the trick - Sherlock’s smile blossomed and his eyes turned affectionate, “Well… Everybody is, sometimes.”

Rosie started to grumble and Sherlock repositioned her and stood up to carry her to the bureau they’d pressed into service as a changing table. John watched them silently, passing over items as they were needed, watching as Rosie fell asleep in the middle of the operation. “I liked being a husband,” he said. There, it was out.

Sherlock regarded him for a moment. “Mmm… No you didn’t.”

John rolled his eyes. “I liked being married.”

“Nope.”

“Oh really?”

“Not even a year in and you were looking towards an exrramarital affair,” Sherlock reminded him.

John shook his head and looked away, trying not to grin, “Yes alright.”

Sherlock’s lip twitched, “With my little sister.”

John burst into mortified giggles. “Yes alright. And I was looking at my therapist, too,” he admitted.

“Who was also my little sister, really John, what am I to think?” Sherlock goaded. 

John bit his fist to keep from outright laughing. His eyes were damp. “I said I liked being a husband, right, I didn’t say I was very good at it.”

“Your instinct for finding dangerous people is impeccable.”

“Yes alright but in my defence, they reminded me of…” John’s brain caught up with himself, “…You.” Sherlock snapped the final nappy tape into place. He had that mystified look again. “You’re right, I was a shite husband,” John sighed, “Can’t imagine why you’d want to think of me like that, with that kind of example behaviour.”

Sherlock scooped Rosie into his hands and laid her down in her bed. “Different standards.”

“…I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

“John…?” Sherlock didn’t take his eyes off of Rosie. “You said that… they reminded you…”

John blew out a breath. He stared in the direction of Mycroft’s bedroom and wiped a hand down his face. “Of you,” he finished, “Yes.”

“But you’ve been… You’ve always been quite clear about…”

“Yes,” John sighed, “But… the years I spent with you were the happiest I’ve ever been. And being back with you again, it’s… it’s like finally reaching the A&E and knowing that it’s safe to collapse, it’s going to be okay.” He glanced towards Mycroft’s bedroom again. “I don’t know quite what I feel for you but it’s strong. And I’m learning that this is a lot more complicated than I was led to believe.”

Sherlock followed his glance. “They’re not shagging, if that’s worrying you.”

John grinned. “It isn’t. Worries everyone else, though, doesn’t it. We’re like that, aren’t we. That’s why everyone thinks we’re shagging. Mycroft said I’d deduced the level of intimacy correctly, just not the nature of the relationship. We’ve got that level of intimacy, haven’t we.”

Sherlock was silent. John turned to look at him. Then, slowly, he reached up to touch John’s shirt, fingers ghosting over the scar on John’s shoulder, hidden beneath the fabric. John nodded almost imperceptibly and Sherlock pressed his palm to it. John reached up to cover his hand, lacing his fingers into Sherlock’s. Then reached his free hand to touch Sherlock’s sharper-than-ever cheekbone. “I’ve been lost without my blogger,” Sherlock whispered.

John gazed at him. “’This is family.’”

And Sherlock nodded back, with all his love and loyalty and faintly dawning hope reflecting in his eyes for only John to see. “That’s why you stay.”

* * * *

_A murder of crows flew overhead screaming “Law! Law! Law!” She turned to follow their flight._

_Her eyes opened._

“Oh, did I wake you?” he asked, knowing full well he did.

She pushed herself to sit up a little, “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

“I had the proper authorization,” he said lightly, “I’m Henry Brandon, Earl of Undershaw. You’re Eurus, aren’t you? Mycroft Holmes’s little sister. Mycroft Holmes’s prisoner.”

She watched him. 

“It’s terrible, what he’s done to you. All of your crimes were committed when you were still a minor child. If you were anybody else, you would have been re-assessed, given a new identity, and released. That’s what they did for Mary Bell and Jon Venables - but not for Eurus Holmes, poor thing. No, you, he kept imprisoned and used you for his own ends. And that’s terrible.”

“So is stealing forty cakes. What do you want?”

He leaned forward, his face soft with concern, “To give you what you should have had, what Mary Bell and Jon Venables had. A new identity. A second chance.” He sat back and folded his hands, “In exchange for a small favour.”

Eurus leaned forward. “I’m listening.”


	19. Can't Fight This Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has some thinking to do.

_I can’t fight this feeling any longer. And yet I’m still afraid to let it go_

_What started out as friendship has grown stronger. I only wish I had the strength to let it show_

_I tell myself that I can’t hold out forever. I say there is no reason for my fear_

_’Cause I feel so secure when we’re together. You give my life direction, you make everything so clear_

The kettle began to boil. John poked at the bacon starting to sizzle in the pan.

_And even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight. You’re a candle in the window on a cold dark winter night. And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might._

_And I can’t fight this feeling anymore. I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for. It’s time to bring this ship in to the shore and throw away the oars forever._

He snapped the radio off and sighed. He unlocked his phone to check his messages, gazing sadly at the photograph that formed his lock screen. 

_It’s like finally reaching the A &E and knowing that it’s safe to collapse, it’s going to be okay._ And it was. He remembered, the many times some soldier or even civilian would stagger to the door of the A&E then collapse, the strength that had driven them there, exhausted. The nurses even had a nickname for it, FDGB for ‘fall down go boom.’ He’d done it himself, the time he’d been stabbed in Helmand. And this, coming back to Sherlock, this was exactly what it was like. Clutching his broken heart, collapsing, knowing that he was safe, that Sherlock would the best he could for the man he loved. 

John was finally ready to face that. It made so much sense of so many of the things Sherlock had done. They’d talked around it a little more after John had convinced Sherlock to share the bed. He’d slept the rest of the night with Sherlock spooned around him and it had felt… right. 

He wondered what Mary would have thought. 

A noise made him look up. “Oh, hello,” he smiled, “You’re awake. Would’ve thought you’d sleep for a few days.” Minerva made a soft noise and John chuckled, “Tea’s up, if you want some.” Minerva nodded and went to pour two cups. “How are you feeling? Sleep alright?”

Minerva nodded, ‘Better than I have in a long time. I slept well at your flat, too.’

John smiled, “Yes, it took me far too long to work out the real reason why Sherlock stayed up half the night playing that bloody violin. Bastard’s right though, it does help.” He watched Minerva sip her tea then asked softly, “Did you ever want children? I’m offering to share Rosie, if that was ever something you might have wanted.”

Minerva shrugged again and signed, ‘No point in wanting something that was already taken away.’

“I’m so sorry that was done to you,” John said, “People really treated disabled kids like shit back then.” He shook his head then grinned slyly, “That was the other thing that tipped me off that those packets weren’t tampons.”

Minerva beamed, ‘You are the only person who’s ever noticed.’

“What, that a woman with a very old hysterectomy scar is carrying sanitary towels?” John grinned, “No, not really a surprise. Sherlock really does have a point about people, sometimes.”

John’s phone lit up with a notification. He checked it and unlocked it to dismiss it, then he noticed Minerva staring intently at it. “My wife,” he said with a sad smile, “Mary. Well… that’s the name she was using at the time. I found out it wasn’t really hers.”

‘Where is she now?’ Minerva signed.

“She died,” John sighed, gazing at the picture on his phone, “Her real name was Rosamund. I never found out what her full name was.”

‘Moran,’ Minerva signed, suddenly tense, ‘That’s Rosamund Moran. You’re certain she’s dead?’

“What? Yes. Yes, of course I’m certain.”

‘Did you find her body?’

John stared at her like she’d grown an extra head. “She bloody well died in my arms!”

‘Buried or cremated?’

“What?! Hang on, what’s this all about?”

‘Aside from Mycroft, only two other people came close to actually killing me. Rosamund Moran was one of them and she was **very** good at faking her death, almost as good at it as I am.’

John stared at her. “ **Mary?** Mary tried to kill you?”

‘And very nearly succeeded,’ Minerva nodded, ‘The last I knew of her, she had taken a job with the Irishman.’

* * * *

Snapped awake. The space beside him was still just warm but a wave of panic swept over him, prompting him to throw the blankets off and rush to the door in his pyjamas.

“She’s fine.” Mycroft turned to look at the bedroom across the hall. The door was opened just enough to see Sherlock curled under the covers, peering at him through slitted eyelids. “She’s downstairs with John.” 

Mycroft took a deep breath and swallowed, trying to calm his racing heart. Sherlock snaked an arm out and patted the bed beside him. Mycroft hesitated, then went to sit as Sherlock skootched over to make room. “You said you were here because of the heat wave.”

Sherlock shrugged, “You have air conditioning. It’s better for Rosie.”

“That’s not why you’re here.”

“Living with John has taught me a lot,” Sherlock said, “Sleeping is vulnerable. Ordinary sounds of people living tell a vigilant subconscious that all’s well, it’s safe to sleep. Even Mrs. Hudson found she slept better after I moved in.”

“Minerva did say that the night at your flat was the best sleep she’d had in a while.”

“Not just her,” Sherlock said and poked him. 

Mycroft looked away, knowing Sherlock was right. “Thank you for bringing her home,” he said softly.

Sherlock stretched and sat up to sit next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “Pointless of me to apologise for things I might have said and done while not in possession of all the facts, but nevertheless…” He trailed off but shot his brother a brief but earnest glance. “Starting to understand why you lie to everyone, even yourself. That’s all you know.”

Mycroft huffed, “Only you would think of it that way.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No. That’s the worst part.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. “It won’t be easy,” Sherlock said in a low voice. Mycroft glanced at him. “There’ll be times when she’ll feel like this was a mistake. She’ll feel like she’s intruding on your life. There’ll be times when you feel that way too. You had adjusted and moved on, you had everything set up and under control and then she came back and disrupted everything. There’ll be times she’ll wish she hadn’t come home. There’ll be times she’ll wonder if she shouldn’t have stayed dead.”

Mycroft stared at his knees, realizing that Sherlock was talking about himself. It hurt, because he hadn’t recognised it and wouldn’t have known what to do about it if he had. It hurt, because he’d failed his little brother. It hurt, because he didn’t know what to do with that information.

“And she won’t know how to stop running.”

Mycroft glanced at him. “Ah. Much like Doctor Watson doesn’t know how to stop fighting.” Sherlock nodded. “Very well. I shall heed your wisdom in these matters.” Sherlock not-quite-glanced at him, knowing that was a large concession. “How can I help her?”

Sherlock was silent for several minutes before he finally looked away, glancing at the pillow that smelled of John’s aftershave, “Don’t stop believing.” Mycroft just nodded. 

“ **Mary?** _Mary_ tried to kill you?”

The brothers stared at each other. Sherlock felt a stab of anxiety at the way John’s voice was rising and launched off the bed, Mycroft close behind him as they ran to the kitchen.

“ **Mary?** ” John said again, “Are you saying… I’m sorry, I’m not the best at sign language… Am I understanding you correctly? Are you saying that **my wife** worked for **Moriarty**?” He heard a sharp inhale behind him and turned to see Sherlock looking stunned, like he did when pieces were coming together. “And how long have **you** known?”

“About twenty seconds,” Sherlock said, “ **That’s** what I was trying to tell myself!” He stared at Mycroft, “ **Mary** was the missing shooter!”

“What missing shooter.”

Oops. John’s voice was much too level. Sherlock bit his lip, remembering that he’d never actually got around to telling John about this part. He glanced up at Mycroft, caught the glint in his brother’s eyes telling him he was ready to intervene if John got too… energetic. He sucked in a breath and said, “The shooter who was covering you at Bart’s.”

John inhaled and exhaled slowly. “You never mentioned a shooter at Bart’s.”

“I mentioned the shooters on Mrs. Hudson and Graydon.”

“Greg.”

“Him, yes.”

“But not me,” John said levelly. He didn’t notice Mycroft and Minerva exchanging a glance that communicated volumes about their opinion of John’s ability to extrapolate from information that wasn’t medical symptoms. “But not me. When were you planning on telling me? That my **wife** was an assassin for **Moriarty** and was going to **shoot me**?”

“Probably as soon as I knew.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t know!”

“What do you mean, ‘you didn’t know’?!”

“I didn’t **know** , John!”

“You’re **Sherlock bloody Holmes** , you know fucking near **everything** , how could you not know **this**?!”

“Because I **don’t** know _EVERYTHING_ , John!”

John inhaled sharply - then felt a touch at his elbow and turned to see Minerva watching him from the side of her eye, her face turned slightly away. “’He’s only human, of flesh and blood, a man,’” she sang softly. 

John exhaled slowly. “And you said she was as good at faking her death as you are.” She nodded. 

Sherlock and Mycroft glanced at each other. “She was **very** clever, John. Much more clever than she let anyone believe, including me.”

John scraped his hand through his hair and shook his head. “I need… I need to think about this,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen. A few minutes later, they heard the door slam. 

Sherlock let out a heavy breath, “Well that went better than anticipated.”

* * * *

Afternoon and the heat was not preferable to Mycroft’s air conditioned home but it was good for Rosie to get some… air, for lack of a better description in London. Sherlock sat on the park bench, eyes roving over the passers-by. With Minerva being hunted and Mycroft under threat, it was best to stay vigilant. Which is why he suppressed a sigh of relief when the figure of a man sat down on the bench beside him. 

“Of course you couldn’t tell me,” John said quietly, “She only told you at Leinster Gardens, she told us both, there was nothing she wouldn’t do. She only showed you what she could do. I made my choice and chose her and of course you couldn’t tell me after that.” He covered Sherlock’s hand with his own. “So, all of this - _all_ of it - was to keep me… safe, then, was it?”

“Of course,” Sherlock said.

“Right. Right.” John patted Sherlock’s hand and squeezed it lightly, “You are only the most… _loyal_ dickhead I’ve ever met.” Sherlock’s mouth spread into a wide grin and he turned his hand up to lace John’s fingers through his own.


End file.
